[1] Her mother was from a large Fenland family in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and the head of a school for disabled children, and her father was a travelling salesman for a rope manufacturer.

[4] She entered films in Britain, but after her marriage to Jack Hawkins failed, she moved to the United States hoping to find better roles.

During her time as a leading actress on the stage in London, she often had to fight over roles with her two rivals, Peggy Ashcroft and Celia Johnson.

Among other programs, she was a regular on Mandrake the Magician[6] (as Princess Narda), and then with her second husband Hume Cronyn in The Marriage[7] which ran on radio from 1953 to 1954, and then segued onto television.

She had supporting appearances in The Valley of Decision (1945), The Green Years (1946, as Cronyn's daughter), Dragonwyck (1946) starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price and Forever Amber (1947).

She appeared as the insomniac murderess in A Woman's Vengeance (1948), a film noir adapted by Aldous Huxley from his short story "The Gioconda Smile".

The beginning of the 1980s saw a resurgence in her film career, with character roles in The World According to Garp (with Cronyn), Best Friends, Still of the Night (all 1982) and The Bostonians (1984).

However, it was her colourful performance in Driving Miss Daisy (1989), as an aging, stubborn Southern Jewish matron, that earned her an Oscar.

[12] Prior to moving to Connecticut, she and Cronyn lived for many years in nearby Pound Ridge, New York, and they remained together until her death in 1994.