Joan Greenwood, English actress (b. 1921)
Joan Mary Waller Greenwood (4 March 1921 – 28 February 1987) was an English actress. Her husky voice, coupled with her slow, precise elocution, was her trademark. She played Sibella in the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets, and also appeared in The Man in the White Suit (1951), Young Wives' Tale (1951), The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Stage Struck (1958), Tom Jones (1963) and Little Dorrit (1987).
Greenwood worked mainly on the stage, where she had a long career, appearing with Donald Wolfit's theatre company in the years following World War II. Later, after the war, her appearances in Ealing comedies are among her memorable screen appearances: Whisky Galore!; as the seductive Sibella in the black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949); and in The Man in the White Suit (1951). She opened The Grass Is Greener in the West End in 1952 and played Gwendolen in a film version of The Importance of Being Earnest released in the same year.
She had leading roles in Stage Struck (1958) and then in Mysterious Island, an adaptation of a Jules Verne novel; and was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for Tom Jones (1963).
In 1960, Greenwood appeared as the title character in a production of Hedda Gabler at the Oxford Playhouse. Starring opposite her as Judge Brack was the actor André Morell. They fell in love and flew in secret to Jamaica, where they were married, remaining together until his death in 1978.
1987Feb, 27
Joan Greenwood
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Events on 1987
- 27Apr
Kurt Waldheim
The U.S. Department of Justice bars Austrian President Kurt Waldheim (and his wife, Elisabeth, who had also been a Nazi) from entering the USA, charging that he had aided in the deportations and executions of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II. - 1May
Auschwitz concentration camp
Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. - 5Jul
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
Sri Lankan Civil War: The LTTE uses suicide attacks on the Sri Lankan Army for the first time. The Black Tigers are born and, in the following years, will continue to kill with the tactic. - 27Jul
RMS Titanic
RMS Titanic Inc. begins the first expedited salvage of wreckage of the RMS Titanic. - 7Nov
Habib Bourguiba
In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.