Gladys Cooper
Dame Gladys Cooper (18 December 1888 – 17 November 1971) was an English actress, theatre manager and producer whose work spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television.
She was born in Hither Green, London. As a teenager she began in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, then moved into dramatic plays and silent films before World War I. From 1917 to 1934 she helped run the Playhouse Theatre and acted there in many productions. In the 1920s she gained praise for roles in W. Somerset Maugham plays and other works, and she continued to perform in London and on Broadway through the 1930s.
Cooper moved to Hollywood in 1940 and played a variety of character parts. She received three Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress for Now, Voyager (1942), The Song of Bernadette (1943) and My Fair Lady (1964). Her film work in the 1940s–60s included The Secret Garden (1949) and Separate Tables (1958), among others.
On stage in the 1950s and 1960s, she appeared in productions such as The Chalk Garden and A Passage to India, earning Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Play for both. She also worked in television, including three Twilight Zone episodes in the early 1960s, and starred in The Rogues (1964–65).
In 1967 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Her late-stage highlight was The Chalk Garden (1970–71). Her last public appearance was on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971. She died of pneumonia at 82 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
Cooper was married three times and had three children, including John R. Buckmaster. She published an autobiography in 1931.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 09:33 (CET).