Baddeley, Hermione Clinton

Baddeley, Hermione Clinton- (1906–86), English actress, sister of Angela (above), who was on the stage as a child, made her adult début in 1923, and soon achieved an enviable reputation in revue, appearing with The Co-Optimists at the Palace in 1924 and then in Cochran's On with the Dance (1925) and its sequel Still Dancing (1926). In 1927 she made a great success as Ninetta, The Infant Phenomenon, in Nigel Playfair's When Crummles Played, an extravaganza based on the theatrical chapters in Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby. She was also much admired as Polaire in Zoë Akins's The Greeks Had a Word for it (1934), in which her sister also appeared. She returned to revue with Nine Sharp (1938) and The Little Revue (1939) and made her one excursion into classic comedy as Margery Pinchwife in Wycherley's The Country Wife (1940). After two revues in which she was partnered by Hermione Gingold, Rise above it (1941) and Sky High (1942), she returned to straight plays as Ida Arnold in a stage version of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock (1943), then rejoined Gingold in the revue Slings and Arrows (1948) and Coward's Fumed Oak and Fallen Angels (1949). She was also in the revues À La Carte (1948) and At the Lyric (1953) and was excellent as Mrs Pooter in Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody (1955). She made her New York début in Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey (1961), and was later seen there in Tennessee Williams's The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963). Her last appearance in the West End was as Mrs Peachum in Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera in 1972.