Gertrude Lawrence

From Alfred Hitchcock Wiki

born: 04/Jul/1898 (London, England, UK)
died: 06/Sep/1952 (New York, New York, USA) - liver cancer

[edit] Biography

Gertrude Lawrence was an actress and musical performer popular in the 1930s and 1940s, appearing on stage in London and on Broadway, and in several films. She is particularly associated with the light comedy of Noel Coward.

She married Francis Gordon-Howley, a director, during World War I, and they divorced in 1928, having had one daughter. In 1928, she announced her engagement to Bertrand L. Taylor Jr., a New York stockbroker but the marriage was eventually called off. Lawrence then married Richard Aldrich, an American theatre owner from a blueblood family, on July 4, 1940, and they remained married until her death. In addition to an affair with film star Douglas Fairbanks Jr., she also had lesbian affairs, including a much-rumoured relationship with the British novelist Dame Daphne du Maurier, and apparently with Beatrice Lillie who, when referring to Lawrence, said: "I knew her better than her husband". Passionate letters written between Lawrence and Du Maurier were published in a 1993 biography of Du Maurier, who long outlasted her one-time love interest. Lawrence also appears to have had a much earlier affair with du Maurier's own father, Sir Gerald du Maurier; in fact, Daphne du Maurier referred to Lawrence as "the last of Daddy's actress loves".

(Wikipedia)