Constance Collier

Constance Collier was an English actress who worked on stage and in films and also taught acting. Born in Windsor, Berkshire, she first appeared on stage as a small child, and by 1893 had joined the Gaiety Girls dance troupe in London. In 1906 she played Cleopatra opposite Herbert Beerbohm Tree in his revival of Antony and Cleopatra. She later wrote plays with Ivor Novello, using the pen name James Lestrange, and had a hand in the text for Deems Taylor's opera Peter Ibbetson, first given at the Metropolitan Opera in 1931. Moving to Hollywood in the late 1920s, she coached actors in voice and diction, with pupils including Colleen Moore, Audrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh and Marilyn Monroe. On screen she appeared in Stage Door (1937), Rope (1948) and Whirlpool (1950), and she received the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre Award for training performers in Shakespeare. Her honors also include a Hollywood Walk of Fame star. She died in 1955.