Biography

In a career than spanned eight decades, Thora Hird was widely-regarded as one of Britain's finest character actresses. She made over 100 films as well as starring in a host of TV comedies and, as a straight actress, excelled in the works of playwright Alan Bennett. Even in her 90s, she was working almost daily.

Born in Morecambe, Lancashire, the daughter of the manager of the local Royalty Theatre, she was carried on to the stage in a melodrama at the age of eight weeks. When old enough, she joined the Royalty's theatre company, although she kept a day job as a cashier in a grocery store. "I spent 10 years working in that grocery store", she recalled, "and I've played nearly all the customers I used to serve - maids, landladies, cleaners, forthright parents. When I'm acting, I'll do some little thing I've remembered, so simple". At the theatre, she appeared in over 500 plays and, in 1941, the comedian George Formby, on a visit to the theatre, recommended her to Michael Balcon at Ealing Film Studios. Put under contract, she first appeared in Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942) with Will Hay and a string of comedy films and dramas followed. In the same vein as the saucy seaside postcards of her Morecambe birth, Hird was usually cast as the all-seeing boarding house landlady, a gossiping neighbour or a sharp tongued mother-in-law.

In the 1950s, Hird was under contract to the Rank Organisation and was established as a major character actress. She worked with some of Britain's finest directors, including Herbert Wilcox, Lewis Gilbert and John Schlesinger but, by her own account, was not easily awed. "I've appeared in hundreds of films and television things and, in some cases, I literally mean 'appeared' around the door, that was all. Like anybody earning a living, I took most of the work that came along". She gave outstanding performances in Simon et Laura (1955) and Le cabotin (1960), opposite Laurence Olivier, but one of her best- remembered roles was that of the monstrous TV-addicted mother in Un amour pas comme les autres (1962).

As her career progressed, she frequently returned to the stage, often in comedies, with comedians such as Arthur Askey and Harry Secombe, and, in 1964, she was memorably team with the comedian Freddie Frinton in the TV series, Meet the Wife (1963). She starred in a succession of hit TV comedies throughout the 70s and 80s but proof of her talent as a straight actress came in 1987, when she starred in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads monologue, A Creamcracker under the Settee for which she won a BAFTA award. She wrote several volumes of autobiography, including "Scene and Hird" and "Not in the Diary" and, in 1995, was the subject of a South Bank Show (ITV) monograph. One of the show's contributors, the actor Alan Bates, said of her, "Thora always had a grasp of her character immediately. She didn't have to work herself into a state to get it right. She is a naturally funny woman whose comedy is on the edge of tragedy. It's instinctive and very understanding of life itself".

- IMDb mini biography by: Patrick Newley

Thora made her first stage appearance at the age of 8 weeks as a baby in her own mother's arms in a play directed by her father who believed in realism.Her next appearance came at 8 years old when. without telling her parents she entered a spot prize talent competition and won, When she got older she wanted to be a milliner or own her own shop selling everything.. She spent some time working in a Cooperative store while in the evenings she was a member of a repertory company. where s he was discovered and given a contract. She was an overnight success and went on to appear in hundreds of plays , films and radio and tv programmes. Stage roles ranged from the nurse in Romeo and Juliet to the comedy maid in No. No Nanette. Several tv series include Meet the Wife, In Loving Memory, and Hallelujah,

- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5

She and her family with brother Neville lived in Cheapside, Morecambe virtually next door to to the back of the Theatre Royal, She met her husband at the Morecambe Winter Gardens when he was the orchestra leader in 1934 and she was a member of the repertory company. That was where she was seen by George Formby who arranged a screen test for her with Basil Dearden resulting in her getting a film contract which, was quite a jump from being a cashier at the local Coop store. Once established in show business she made some 103 films and a number of commercials including Bio- Tex and Mothers Pride Bread, Al this from starting to dance when she was 6

- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5

She did a screen test at Ealing which got her a contract in 1939. She made her London West End debut in No medals at the Vaudeville Theatre during the war. Her father was manager of the Royalty Theatre in Morecambe then of the Central Pier in Blackpool where she had 5 cousins in a tap dancing act. She was in the television series Meet the Wife with Freddie Frinton

- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5