Dame Sybil Thorndike

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Dame Sybil Thorndike

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Dame Sybil Thorndike (Agnes Sybil Thorndike), 1882-1976, English actress. Thorndike made her debut with the Ben Greet Players and toured the United States with them (1904-7). She worked with the Old Vic (1914-18) in Shakespearean repertory and thereafter played hundreds of classic roles. Thorndike was acclaimed for her performances in Euripides' Medea and The Trojan Women and created the title roles in Shaw's Candida (1920) and St. Joan (1924). She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1931. In 1969, Thorndike performed at the opening of the London theater named for her.

Bibliography: See biographies by her brother, Russell Thorndike (2d ed. 1950), by her son, John Casson (1972), and by E. Sprigge (1971).

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Thorndike, Dame (Agnes) Sybil

The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre | 1996 | | © The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre 1996, originally published by Oxford University Press 1996. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Thorndike, Dame (Agnes) Sybil (1882–1976), English actress. She began her long and distinguished career under Ben Greet in 1904 in a wide variety of Shakespeare parts on tour in England and the USA, and in 1908 joined Miss Horniman's repertory company in Manchester, where in 1909 she married the actor and director Lewis Casson, with whom she was associated in much of her later work. During the next five years she divided her time between London—where she was seen, among other parts, as Emma Huxtable in Granville-Barker's The Madras House (1910) and Beatrice Farrar in Houghton's Hindle Wakes (1912)—and Manchester, where she gave an excellent performance in the title-role of St John Ervine's Jane Clegg (1913). She made her début in New York in Somerset Maugham's Smith (1910) opposite John Drew. She was at the London Old Vic under Lilian Baylis, 1914–18, playing not only most of Shakespeare's young heroines but also, owing to the absence of young actors on war service, various supporting male roles in Shakespeare. On leaving the Old Vic she was seen as Synge de Coûfontaine in Claudel's The Hostage and as Hecuba in Gilbert Murray's translation of Euripides' Trojan Women (both 1919), as well as in a number of short-lived modern plays, and from 1920 to 1922 was in Grand Guignol seasons at the Little Theatre with her husband and brother. One of her finest roles was St Joan (1924) in the first London production of Shaw's play; she portrayed another Shaw heroine, Barbara Undershaft, in a revival of Major Barbara in 1929. She appeared in Van Druten's The Distaff Side in 1933, repeating the role a year later in New York, where she also played Mrs Conway in Priestley's Time and the Conways in 1938. Later in the same year London audiences saw one of her most memorable performances, as the elderly schoolmistress Miss Moffat in Emlyn Williams's The Corn is Green. During the Second World War she toured with the Old Vic company for ENSA to mining towns and villages, playing Shaw's Candida, Lady Macbeth, and Euripides' Medea. She was at the New Theatre (now the Albery) with the Old Vic company as Aase in Ibsen's Peer Gynt (1944) and Jocasta in Sophocles' Oedipus the King (1945). In 1947 she and her husband were in one of Priestley's best plays, The Linden Tree, and in 1949 she began a long run in the comedy Treasure Hunt by M. J. Farrell and John Perry. She was in two long-running plays by N. C. Hunter, Waters of the Moon (1951) and A Day by the Sea (1953), and made three overseas tours before returning to London in a revival of T. S. Eliot's The Family Reunion in 1956 and visiting New York in Graham Greene's The Potting Shed in 1957. She and Lewis Casson celebrated their golden wedding in 1959 by starring in Eighty in the Shade, specially written for them by Clemence Dane, and were together in Coward's Waiting in the Wings (1960) and as the Nurse and ‘Woffles’ in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at the first Chichester Festival in 1962. After starring in a new comedy by William Douglas Home, The Reluctant Peer (1964), she made her last appearance on the London stage in 1966 in a revival of Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace with Casson and Athene Seyler.

Her brother (Arthur) Russell Thorndike (1885–1972) was an actor who also wrote the play Dr Syn (1925), in which he played the title-role. Their younger sister Eileen Thorndike (1891–1953) was also an accomplished actress.

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PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Thorndike, Dame (Agnes) Sybil." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 14 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Thorndike, Dame (Agnes) Sybil." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (November 14, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-ThorndikeDameAgnesSybil.html

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Thorndike, Dame (Agnes) Sybil." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved November 14, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-ThorndikeDameAgnesSybil.html

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

Free Article It's been Grand, just Grand!
Newspaper article from: Yorkshire Evening Post (Leeds, England); 5/24/2007

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Sybil, a star in a cardie; Selfless and unassuming: Actress Dame Sybil Thorndike in 1932.
Newspaper article from: The Daily Mail (London, England); 11/14/2008; 700+ words ; ...Michael Arditti WHEN Sybil Thorndike and Edith Evans were...actress remarked: 'And Sybil must have a new cardigan...two great theatrical dames of the mid 20th century...greater actress, but Thorndike as the greater woman...
A divine slice of cathedral close at [pounds sterling]500,000 (for two); LONG TERM: Joan Sharp, left, has lived in the Row, far left and above, for 41 years. Actress Dame Sybil Thorndike, right, spent her childhood there GEORGIAN SPLENDOUR: Minor Canon Row dates from the 1720s INSPIRING: An aerial view of Canon Row shows just how close this is to the vast Norman cathedral in Rochester, below.
Newspaper article from: The Mail on Sunday (London, England); 8/12/2007; 700+ words ; ...cathedral -organists, choirmasters and the like - one of whom, a plaque records, was thefather of the great actress Dame Sybil Thorndike, whose early childhood wasspent here. Since the Fifties, very little has been done to any of the houses, which...
The grande dame of the Playhouse; Encore.(Features)
Newspaper article from: Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, England); 4/15/2006; 700+ words ; ...about his one-time boss. Apparently, the grande dame disliked her actors walking to the stage door of the...all, including performances by Mrs Patrick Campbell, Dame Sybil Thorndike, Noel Coward, Rex Harrison, Michael Redgrave, Robert...
Obituary : Christopher Casson
Newspaper article from: The Independent - London; 7/16/1996; ; 700+ words ; ...better than Christopher Casson, the younger son of Dame Sybil Thorndike and Sir Lewis Casson. It was at once the best and...they were at Euripides. What was Grand Guignol? Sybil Thorndike explained. It consisted of short plays: "There...
Plague Over England.(Theater review)
Magazine article from: Daily Variety; 2/25/2009; ; 700+ words ; ...time: 2 HOURS, 20 MIN. John Gielgud Michael Feast Sybil Thorndike, Vera Dromgoole Celia Imrie Gregory Sam Heughan...dramatized. Only in brief backstage scenes with co-star Dame Sybil Thorndike (Celia Imrie) does Gielgud confess his shame and...
Arts centre returns to the people.(Arts)
Newspaper article from: Daily Post (Liverpool, England); 2/8/2002; 700+ words ; ...or to get a glimpse of theatre darling of the day Sybil Thorndike. By the beginning of the new century queues would...George, David Nash, Falcon Hildred, Anweledig and Dame Sybil Thorndike Main picture: GERALLT LLEWELYN
Another great Restoration act
Newspaper article from: The Northern Echo; 5/5/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...came to the Georgian Theatre I saw Dame Sybil Thorndike, who was appearing with Barbara...been more than 30 years after Dame Sybil created the title role in George...years on, the seeds sown by Dame Sybil's visit to the North Yorkshire...
'Oh Michelle,' I said, 'it can't have been easy for you, being so plain and all' '; When actress Nichola McAuliffe was made to look like a gargoyle and then sent to work alongside famous beauty Michelle Pfeiffer, there was only one way to break the ice . .(Features)
Newspaper article from: The Mail on Sunday (London, England); 4/26/2009; 700+ words ; ...Nichola McAuliffe Iwas playing Dame Sybil Thorndike when the call came. Go and meet...Penelope Cruz. However, as Dame Sybil, great actress though she was...so the legs, neglected under Sybil's lisle and tweed, were oiled...
Honour for Sien.(News)
Newspaper article from: Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales); 12/1/2004; 331 words ; ...number of English-born stage and screen actresses rightly honoured in the past with the title dame, to name a few Dame Edith Evans, Dame Sybil Thorndike, Dame Wendy Hiller, Dame Joan Plowright, Dame Thora Hird, Dame Julie Andrews, Dame Elizabeth...
Time to give our Sian the honour.(Features)
Newspaper article from: South Wales Echo (Cardiff, Wales); 12/3/2004; 344 words ; ...English-born stage and screen actresses have been rightly honoured in the past with the title Dame. To name a few, Dame Edith Evans, Dame Sybil Thorndike, Dame Wendy Hiller, Dame Joan Plowright, Dame Thora Hird, Dame Julie Andrews and Dame Elizabeth...

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