Johnson, Dame Celia

Johnson, Dame Celia (1908–82), English actress. She made her début in Shaw's Major Barbara in Huddersfield in 1928 and was first seen in London in 1929. She had a long run in Merton Hodge's The Wind and the Rain (1933) and was much admired for her playing of Elizabeth Bennet in an adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1936) and in Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca (1940). In 1947 she played the title-role in Shaw's Saint Joan for the Old Vic company, and in 1951 gave a fine performance as Olga in Chekhov's Three Sisters. She made a successful appearance in modern comedy in William Douglas Home's The Reluctant Débutante (1955) and gave a sensitive portrayal of Isobel Cherry in Robert Bolt's Flowering Cherry (1957). Over the next few years she was in a succession of new plays including Hugh and Margaret Williams's The Grass is Greener (1958) and Billetdoux's Chin-Chin (1960). She then broadened her range by joining the National Theatre company to play Mrs Solness in Ibsen's The Master Builder (1964) opposite Olivier, and took over the part of Judith Bliss in its revival of Coward's Hay Fever (1965), which, like Alan Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking (1967), gave her another opportunity to display her virtuosity in light comedy. In contrast, she was highly effective at Chichester in 1966 as Ranevskaya in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, and in Nottingham in 1970 (London, 1971) as Gertrude to Alan Bates's Hamlet. She was later in three more plays by William Douglas Home, Lloyd George Knew My Father (1972), The Dame of Sark (1974), and The Kingfisher (1977).