Vida Hope

Vida Hope was a British stage and screen actress who also directed theater productions. Born in Liverpool to theatrical parents, she worked as an advertising typist and copywriter before amateur dramatics brought her lead roles in Shaw, Ibsen and Chekhov. A pantomime part at the Unity Theatre led Herbert Farjeon to cast her in The Little Revue in 1939, and she remained with his revues for over three years. She sang at the Players' Theatre during the Second World War and acted in The Streets of London in 1942. A prominent film role was Bertha opposite Alec Guinness in The Man in the White Suit (1951), which earned an Academy Award nomination. She appeared in Peer Gynt at the New Theatre from 1944 to 1945 and directed The Boy Friend in London in 1953, Valmouth at the Lyric in Hammersmith in 1958, and a Bristol Hippodrome revival of The Boy Friend in 1958 and 1959. She died in 1963.