Nora Nicholson

She achieved wider notice in the West End in 1947 for her role in Dark Summer and was admired in both London and on Broadway in New York in The Lady's Not for Burning in 1949–50.

[1] In April 1912 Nicholson made her professional stage debut, playing Dolly Clandon in Benson's production of Shaw's You Never Can Tell at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

[6] During 1916 and 1917 Nicholson toured as Sally in Fred Terry's stage version of The Scarlet Pimpernel, after which she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service, 1918–19.

[1] She had a few outstanding roles, among which were Charlotta, the governess, in The Cherry Orchard (1925), Mrs Debenham in the Broadway production of Rope (1929), and Miss Trafalgar Gower in Trelawny of the 'Wells' at the Old Vic (1938).

Among her more unusual productions during this period was a stage adaptation of The Well of Loneliness, banned in Britain and presented at the Théâtre de la Potinière in Paris in 1930.

[1] During the Second World War Nicholson was a member of the Oxford Playhouse company, where she played one of her three favourite parts of her career, Mrs Boyle in Juno and the Paycock.

[5] Throughout the rest of her career Nicholson was cast in a succession of striking stage roles, including Margaret in The Lady's Not for Burning (1949, London, and 1950, New York), Miss Teresa in Graham Greene's The Living Room (New York, 1954), Ivy in T. S. Eliot's The Family Reunion (1956), Sarita in Noël Coward's Waiting in the Wings (1960), Avdotya Nazarovna in John Gielgud's production of Chekhov's Ivanov (1965), and Miss Nisbitt in Alan Bennett's Forty Years On (1968).

[9] Her cinema films included Tread Softly (1952), Raising a Riot (1955), The Hornet's Nest (1955), A Town Like Alice (1956), Law and Disorder (1958), The Captain's Table (1959), Dangerous Afternoon (1961), and Say Hello to Yesterday (1970).