Dame Gladys Cooper
(1888-1971), ActressSitter in 174 portraits
A great British figure of twentieth-century theatre, Cooper started her career as a chorus girl in The Girls of Gottenberg (1907) with George Edwardes's company at the Gaiety theatre in London, returning the following year as a 'travelling newspaper beauty' in Havana. She was the most popular picture-postcard beauty of the First World War. In 1916, she began to act at the Playhouse, later becoming its manager - one of few women before the Second World War to manage a West End theatre. In 1940, a small role in Hitchcock's Rebecca led to a thirty-year Hollywood career. Notable film successes include Now, Voyager (1942), The Song of Bernadette (1943) and My Fair Lady (1964). She was created a Dame in 1967.
Dame Gladys Cooper in 'The Betrothal'
by H. Haweis
bromide print, 1921
NPG Ax24993
Dame Gladys Cooper in 'The Betrothal'
by Howard Instead
matte bromide print, 1921
NPG Ax24996
Dame Gladys Cooper as Peter Pan
by Sasha (Alexander Stewart)
bromide print, 1923
NPG x38392
Joan Morley (née Buckmaster); Dame Gladys Cooper
by Marcus Adams
gelatin silver print on cream card mount, 1924
NPG x201314
John Rodney Buckmaster; Dame Gladys Cooper
by Marcus Adams
gelatin silver print, 1924
NPG x201315
Dame Gladys Cooper as Peter Pan
by Curtis Moffat
halftone reproduction tear sheet, published 21 January 1925
NPG x137567
by Janet Jevons
bromide postcard print, late 1920s
NPG x198096
by Bertram Park
gelatin silver print, October 1927
NPG x199897
by Dorothy Wilding
bromide postcard print, 1930s
NPG x6375
by Dorothy Wilding
bromide postcard print, 1930s
NPG x6376
by Dorothy Wilding
bromide print on tissue and card mount, 1933
NPG x13698
by Dorothy Wilding
chlorobromide print on tissue and card mount, 1933
NPG x32379
Daniel Massey's Christening party
by Sasha (Alexander Stewart)
chlorobromide print, 28 November 1933
NPG x137630
Daniel Massey's Christening party
by London News Agency
bromide print, 1933
NPG x137631
by Dorothy Wilding
chlorobromide print on tissue and card mount, 1933
NPG x200885
Related People
- John Rodney Buckmaster (son)
- Philip Merivale (husband)
- Joan Morley (née Buckmaster) (daughter)
- Sheridan Morley (grandson)
- Sir Neville Arthur Pearson, 2nd Bt (husband)
- Sally Pearson (née Cooper) (daughter)
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