Moyna Macgill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Moyna Macgill, looking a great deal like daughter Angela Lansbury

Moyna Macgill (December 10, 1895 – November 25, 1975) was an Irish stage and film actress and the mother of actress Angela Lansbury.

Born as Charlotte Lillian McIldowie in Belfast, she was the daughter of a wealthy solicitor who also worked as a director of the Belfast Opera, a position that sparked her interest in theatrics. She was still a teen when she was noticed riding the London Underground by director George Pearson, who cast her in several of his films. In 1918, she made her stage debut in the play Love in a Cottage at the West End's Globe Theatre.

Encouraged by Gerald du Maurier to change her name to Moyna Macgill (which invariably was misspelled as "MacGill" or "McGill"), she became a leading actress of the day, appearing in light comedies, melodramas, and classics opposite Herbert Marshall, John Gielgud, and Basil Rathbone, among others.

Twenty-six-year old Macgill was married with a three-year-old daughter, Isolde (who later married Peter Ustinov), when she became involved romantically with Edgar Lansbury, a considerably older bachelor businessman, who was son of the well-known popular Labour politician George Lansbury.

Her husband, actor Reginald Denham, named Lansbury as co-respondent when he filed for divorce. A year after it was finalized, Macgill and Lansbury married and with Isolde settled into a garden flat in London's Regent's Park. Macgill temporarily set aside her career following the birth of daughter Angela and twin sons Edgar, Jr. and Bruce (both of whom would go on to become Broadway producers), although music and dance were prevalent in their upbringing. When they moved into a larger house in suburban Mill Hill, she turned their home into a salon for actors, writers, directors, musicians, and artists, all of whom left an impression on young Angela and were instrumental in directing her interests towards acting.

In 1934, Edgar Lansbury died of stomach cancer. Macgill began an affair with Scotsman Leckie Forbes, a former colonel with the British Army in India^{[citation needed]}. The two moved their respective families to a house in Hampstead, but Macgill soon discovered her husband's military career had made him a staunch disciplinarian who ruled the household like a tyrant^{[citation needed]}. When the opportunity to take her children to America presented itself just prior to The Blitz, she spirited them away under cover of night. She never spoke to Forbes again.

In New York City, Macgill's career stalled, and she took to presenting dramatic readings at private schools for income. In 1942, she was invited to join a troupe that was rehearsing Noel Coward's Tonight at 8:30 for a touring production designed to raise funds for the Royal Canadian Air Force. She accepted, and when the company finished the run in Vancouver, she headed to Hollywood to seek work there. She soon sent for Angela, and eventually the twins, and the family settled in Laurel Canyon.

Her career in Hollywood consisted largely of small character parts in films and on television. Among her more notable film credits are Frenchman's Creek and The Picture of Dorian Gray (which co-starred her daughter Angela). In later years she made guest appearances on such television series as Studio One, The Twilight Zone, Dr. Kildare, Mister Ed, I Dream of Jeannie and My Favorite Martian.