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Diane Hart is a Actor British born on 20 july 1926 at Bedford (United-kingdom)
Diane Hart (20 July 1926 - 7 February 2002) was an English actress in both films and the theatre in the West End Theatre of London, political campaigner and inventor. For 12 years she was married to the television broadcaster Kenneth MacLeod before separating in 1968. MacLeod was one of the first seen in the early days of Rediffusion and later, from 1968 and for many years, was the 6 o'clock evening Westward Diary anchorman at Westward Television. They had two daughters.
Born in 1926, Hart was educated at various convents and then at Abbot's Hill School, King's Langley (where she was a Classics scholar). She went after her Matriculation at 14 to RADA at a very young age in 1941. She started working for the BBC as a secretary and, in the middle years of the Second World War, as an audio engineer, where she played Hitler's speeches back to the Germans from the BBC in the UK over their airwaves.
It was then in 1943 that Hart started on stage as a feed in a double act with the comedian (later an agent) Pat Aza at the Finsbury Park Empire. This led to a six-month tour of the Moss Empires circuit on the halls. After this she continued her war service entertaining the troops for ENSA.
Her theatre breakthrough came, though, with her casting in a supporting role in Daughter Janie Apollo Theatre, 1944) which led to William Douglas-Home's early hit The Chiltern Hundreds (Vaudeville Theatre (1946), and Booth Theatre, New York, 1949). This political light comedy, centred round an 'Earl of Lister' and a local by-election, Hart played the comic role of the young housemaid Bessie opposite A. E. Matthews.
When Glynis Johns – the original choice – became unavailable for Terence Rattigan's comedy Who is Sylvia? at the Criterion Theatre (1950), Hart was cast instead. In this production, she had to play three roles, one in each act as an office girl, an actress and a model. The play opened at the home of Rattigan's first success, French Without Tears, and also co-starred two of its cast Robert Flemyng and Roland Culver. It ran for just under a year and gained the young Diane Hart positive critical reviews.
In Nancy Mitford's version of Andrew Roussin's French farce The Little Hut at the Lyric Theatre in 1950, Hart was cast for the West End version instead of the American actress who created the role, Joan Tetzel, taking over opposite Robert Morley, and directed by Peter Brook. She also enjoyed a six-month stint as Mollie Ralston in one of the earliest runs of The Mousetrap (Ambassadors Theatre (1953), and then abandoned the stage for 11 years in favour of television and the cinema.
In March 1963, she translated the Sardou play Divorce A La Carte and appeared in the production of the same with John Justin, Barry Shawzin and Katy Greenwood at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Then in 1964, she appeared on the West End stage with her friend, Margaret Lockwood (with whom she had first worked in The Wicked Lady, above) in Every Other Evening also at the Phoenix. A long-running engagement came Hart's way with Joyce Rayburn's West End comedy The Man Most Likely To... (Vaudeville Theatre (1968) opposite Leslie Phillips. She also had another long vaudeville residency acting with Terence Alexander and replacing Moira Lister in the successful Ray Cooney/John Chapman farce Move Over, Mrs Markham (1972).
She also participated in theatre in Sloane Square when she worked at the Royal Court Theatre. Hart's first appearance there was as the mother in an early Howard Barker play, Cheek Royal Court Theatre Upstairs (1970). She then took a role in Morality (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1971), a piece by Jeremy Seabrook and Michael O'Neill, directed by William Gaskill, a domestic drama about a schoolboy involved in a homosexual relationship with a teacher.
In later years, although she often worked in regional theatre playing, among other parts, the title role in Somerset Maugham's Mrs Dot (Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, 1974), in The Bank Manager (East Grinstead, 1974), Miss Adams Will Be Waiting (Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford, 1975) and The Pleasure Principle (New End, Hampstead 1989) and other plays.
Hart's film career, started much earlier though in the 1940s with a small bridesmaid's role in the Margaret Lockwood costume drama The Wicked Lady (1945), and included a contract to 20th Century-Fox. She also worked for Jean Negulesco in Britannia Mews (1949), scripted by Ring Lardner Jr., and playing opposite David Niven in the musical Happy Go Lovely (1951). Hart's then husband, Kenneth MacLeod, was also in the film with a small part.
She also made many television appearances, beginning at Alexandra Palace during the war as well as radio performances for Val Gielgud and played Ted Ray's wife in Season 4 of the Ray's a Laugh series.
Apart from acting, one of her inventions was the "Beatnix" corselet [1], which during the 1960s had large sales at Britain's Marks and Spencer's. One customer was in the Soviet Union, the wife of the Russian premier, Mrs Alexei Kosygin. Also at one point she persuaded the British War Office to adopt another of her inventions. She suggested they attach harrows to a helicopter to clear landmines during the Falklands campaign.
In politics, Hart once tried to set up a "Women's Party" for the UK. She posted an anonymous advertisement in the personal columns of The Times which read: "Ladies. Don't just sit there. If you are sick of castles in the air, sit in the House of Commons. Wanted, 630 ladies willing to gamble £500 each fighting a constituency." Castles in the air was reference to Barbara Castle, MP, who at the time was the only prominent British female politician.
She hired Caxton Hall in central London for a rally but only about 40 women turned up. Then she ran in the General Election of 1970 as an Independent candidate Lewisham South and lost her deposit. She was criticised by Germaine Greer in the last pages - as a footnote - in her work The Female Eunuch.
In 1977 Hart led a legal action (Source: The Times 25 August 1977) against the actors' union Equity, of which she was a very longstanding member, to stop a referendum of their members over changes to union rules. Four years later she also successfully took on the Aga Khan Foundation United Kingdom conducting the five-day 'plaintiff in person' without legal counsel. She was awarded £750 damages at the High Court (Source: The Times, 16 June 1981) to compensate her for the noise and nuisance caused by the construction of the Ismaili Centre opposite her home in London by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
She was also plaintiff in person in her litigation in 1985, when she was awarded £15,000 (Source: The Times, 12 November 1985) in libel damages after a clip was taken from Games That Lovers Play (1971), a film in which she appeared with Joanna Lumley, Richard Wattis, Jeremy Lloyd, Penny Brahms and Nan Munro. This clip was incorporated illegally into a pornographic film called Electric Blue, 002 [2].
In her last years, she spent time at the Chelsea Arts Club, where she was a member and where she everyday completed The Times and The Daily Telegraph cryptic crosswords with great speed. She could usually be seen cycling to and from the club, between the West End and the King's Road, on her bicycle in a full-length mink coat.
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Diane Hart
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Birth name Diane Lavinia Hart
Nationality United-kingdom
Birth 20 july 1926 at Bedford (United-kingdom)
Death 7 february 2002 (at 75 years) at London (United-kingdom)
Nationality United-kingdom
Birth 20 july 1926 at Bedford (United-kingdom)
Death 7 february 2002 (at 75 years) at London (United-kingdom)
Diane Hart (20 July 1926 - 7 February 2002) was an English actress in both films and the theatre in the West End Theatre of London, political campaigner and inventor. For 12 years she was married to the television broadcaster Kenneth MacLeod before separating in 1968. MacLeod was one of the first seen in the early days of Rediffusion and later, from 1968 and for many years, was the 6 o'clock evening Westward Diary anchorman at Westward Television. They had two daughters.
Born in 1926, Hart was educated at various convents and then at Abbot's Hill School, King's Langley (where she was a Classics scholar). She went after her Matriculation at 14 to RADA at a very young age in 1941. She started working for the BBC as a secretary and, in the middle years of the Second World War, as an audio engineer, where she played Hitler's speeches back to the Germans from the BBC in the UK over their airwaves.
It was then in 1943 that Hart started on stage as a feed in a double act with the comedian (later an agent) Pat Aza at the Finsbury Park Empire. This led to a six-month tour of the Moss Empires circuit on the halls. After this she continued her war service entertaining the troops for ENSA.
Her theatre breakthrough came, though, with her casting in a supporting role in Daughter Janie Apollo Theatre, 1944) which led to William Douglas-Home's early hit The Chiltern Hundreds (Vaudeville Theatre (1946), and Booth Theatre, New York, 1949). This political light comedy, centred round an 'Earl of Lister' and a local by-election, Hart played the comic role of the young housemaid Bessie opposite A. E. Matthews.
When Glynis Johns – the original choice – became unavailable for Terence Rattigan's comedy Who is Sylvia? at the Criterion Theatre (1950), Hart was cast instead. In this production, she had to play three roles, one in each act as an office girl, an actress and a model. The play opened at the home of Rattigan's first success, French Without Tears, and also co-starred two of its cast Robert Flemyng and Roland Culver. It ran for just under a year and gained the young Diane Hart positive critical reviews.
In Nancy Mitford's version of Andrew Roussin's French farce The Little Hut at the Lyric Theatre in 1950, Hart was cast for the West End version instead of the American actress who created the role, Joan Tetzel, taking over opposite Robert Morley, and directed by Peter Brook. She also enjoyed a six-month stint as Mollie Ralston in one of the earliest runs of The Mousetrap (Ambassadors Theatre (1953), and then abandoned the stage for 11 years in favour of television and the cinema.
In March 1963, she translated the Sardou play Divorce A La Carte and appeared in the production of the same with John Justin, Barry Shawzin and Katy Greenwood at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Then in 1964, she appeared on the West End stage with her friend, Margaret Lockwood (with whom she had first worked in The Wicked Lady, above) in Every Other Evening also at the Phoenix. A long-running engagement came Hart's way with Joyce Rayburn's West End comedy The Man Most Likely To... (Vaudeville Theatre (1968) opposite Leslie Phillips. She also had another long vaudeville residency acting with Terence Alexander and replacing Moira Lister in the successful Ray Cooney/John Chapman farce Move Over, Mrs Markham (1972).
She also participated in theatre in Sloane Square when she worked at the Royal Court Theatre. Hart's first appearance there was as the mother in an early Howard Barker play, Cheek Royal Court Theatre Upstairs (1970). She then took a role in Morality (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1971), a piece by Jeremy Seabrook and Michael O'Neill, directed by William Gaskill, a domestic drama about a schoolboy involved in a homosexual relationship with a teacher.
In later years, although she often worked in regional theatre playing, among other parts, the title role in Somerset Maugham's Mrs Dot (Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, 1974), in The Bank Manager (East Grinstead, 1974), Miss Adams Will Be Waiting (Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford, 1975) and The Pleasure Principle (New End, Hampstead 1989) and other plays.
Hart's film career, started much earlier though in the 1940s with a small bridesmaid's role in the Margaret Lockwood costume drama The Wicked Lady (1945), and included a contract to 20th Century-Fox. She also worked for Jean Negulesco in Britannia Mews (1949), scripted by Ring Lardner Jr., and playing opposite David Niven in the musical Happy Go Lovely (1951). Hart's then husband, Kenneth MacLeod, was also in the film with a small part.
She also made many television appearances, beginning at Alexandra Palace during the war as well as radio performances for Val Gielgud and played Ted Ray's wife in Season 4 of the Ray's a Laugh series.
Apart from acting, one of her inventions was the "Beatnix" corselet [1], which during the 1960s had large sales at Britain's Marks and Spencer's. One customer was in the Soviet Union, the wife of the Russian premier, Mrs Alexei Kosygin. Also at one point she persuaded the British War Office to adopt another of her inventions. She suggested they attach harrows to a helicopter to clear landmines during the Falklands campaign.
In politics, Hart once tried to set up a "Women's Party" for the UK. She posted an anonymous advertisement in the personal columns of The Times which read: "Ladies. Don't just sit there. If you are sick of castles in the air, sit in the House of Commons. Wanted, 630 ladies willing to gamble £500 each fighting a constituency." Castles in the air was reference to Barbara Castle, MP, who at the time was the only prominent British female politician.
She hired Caxton Hall in central London for a rally but only about 40 women turned up. Then she ran in the General Election of 1970 as an Independent candidate Lewisham South and lost her deposit. She was criticised by Germaine Greer in the last pages - as a footnote - in her work The Female Eunuch.
In 1977 Hart led a legal action (Source: The Times 25 August 1977) against the actors' union Equity, of which she was a very longstanding member, to stop a referendum of their members over changes to union rules. Four years later she also successfully took on the Aga Khan Foundation United Kingdom conducting the five-day 'plaintiff in person' without legal counsel. She was awarded £750 damages at the High Court (Source: The Times, 16 June 1981) to compensate her for the noise and nuisance caused by the construction of the Ismaili Centre opposite her home in London by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
She was also plaintiff in person in her litigation in 1985, when she was awarded £15,000 (Source: The Times, 12 November 1985) in libel damages after a clip was taken from Games That Lovers Play (1971), a film in which she appeared with Joanna Lumley, Richard Wattis, Jeremy Lloyd, Penny Brahms and Nan Munro. This clip was incorporated illegally into a pornographic film called Electric Blue, 002 [2].
In her last years, she spent time at the Chelsea Arts Club, where she was a member and where she everyday completed The Times and The Daily Telegraph cryptic crosswords with great speed. She could usually be seen cycling to and from the club, between the West End and the King's Road, on her bicycle in a full-length mink coat.
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Filmography of Diane Hart (14 films)
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Games That Lovers Play (1971)
Genres Comedy
Themes Films about sexuality, Erotic films
Actors Joanna Lumley, Richard Wattis, Penny Brahms, Jeremy Lloyd, Diane Hart, Harold Bennett
Roles Mrs. Hill
Rating35%
Enter Inspector Duval (1961)
Directed by Max Varnel
Genres Drama, Crime
Actors Anton Diffring, Diane Hart, Mark Singleton
Roles Jackie
Rating53%
A French policeman, Inspector Duval, is brought to London to help his British colleagues crack a case. It was based on a story by Jacques Monteux.
The Crowning Touch (1959)
, 1h15Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy
Actors Ted Ray, Greta Gynt, Griffith Jones, Sydney Tafler, Dermot Walsh, Maureen Connell
Roles Tess
The "Crowning Touch" of the title is a fancy ladies hat. It has been ordered and specially set aside at a posh British hat shop, but no one has come to collect it. Three of the shop's staff offer different reasons as to why the pretty young girl who'd ordered the hat never showed up.
Keep It Clean (1956)
Genres Comedy
Actors Ronald Shiner, James Hayter, Diane Hart, Ursula Howells, Jean Cadell, Colin Gordon
Roles Kitty
Rating46%
My Wife's Family (1956)
, 1h16Origin United-kingdom
Actors Ronald Shiner, Ted Ray, Greta Gynt, Fabia Drake, Diane Hart, Zena Marshall
Jack Gay, a newlywed with a dominating mother-in-law attempts to surprise his wife Stella with a baby grand piano, but when she overhears him discussing it, she mistakes it for an illegitimate child, particularly with the arrival of his ex girlfriend, the blonde and glamourous Gloria Marsh.
One Jump Ahead (1955)
, 1h6Directed by Charles Saunders
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Crime
Actors Paul Carpenter, Diane Hart, Jill Adams, Roddy Hughes
Roles Maxine
Rating59%
Father's Doing Fine (1952)
, 1h23Directed by Henry Cass
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy, Romantic comedy, Romance
Themes Théâtre, Films based on plays
Actors Richard Attenborough, Heather Thatcher, Noel Purcell, Virginia McKenna, Diane Hart, Susan Stephen
Roles Doreen
Rating51%
Les relations familiales et amoureuses de Lady Buckering et de ses filles Doreen, Gerda, Bicky et Catherine.
The Pickwick Papers (1952)
, 1h55Directed by Noel Langley
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy, Adventure
Actors James Hayter, James Donald, Nigel Patrick, Joyce Grenfell, Hermione Gingold, Hermione Baddeley
Roles Emily Wardle
Rating68%
Something Money Can't Buy (1952)
, 1h23Directed by Pat Jackson
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Comedy
Actors Anthony Steel, Patricia Roc, Moira Lister, A. E. Matthews, David Hutcheson, Michael Trubshawe
Roles Joan
Rating59%
Harry and Anne Wilding return to civilian life after service in the army. They have trouble readjusting, and Harry eventually quits his council job and goes into business, selling food from a mobile canteen. Anne becomes jealous of the daughter of Harry's backer. Anne gives up her job to concentrate on her marriage.
Happy Go Lovely (1951)
, 1h37Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy, Romantic comedy, Musical, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Musical films
Actors David Niven, Vera-Ellen, Cesar Romero, Diane Hart, Bobby Howes, Kay Kendall
Roles Mae
Rating64%
When chorus girl Janet Jones is late for rehearsal in Edinburgh, Bates, the chauffeur for B. G. Bruno, gives her a ride in Bruno's limousine, starting rumours that she is engaged to the wealthiest man in Scotland. American producer Jack Frost, her employer, has just had the star of his next show, Frolics to You, walk out on him because of his desperate financial situation. He replaces her with Janet, hoping that Bruno will back his revue (or at least that he can use Bruno's reputation to fend off impatient creditors). Her dressmaker, Madame Amanda, gives her more clothes (and sends the bill to Bruno). Janet's roommate, Mae Thompson, convinces her to continue the deception.
You're Only Young Twice (1951)
, 1h21Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy
Themes Films based on plays
Actors Joseph Tomelty, Patrick Barr, Charles Hawtrey, Diane Hart, Robert Urquhart, Edward Lexy
Roles Ada Shore
Rating58%
The Forbidden Street (1949)
, 1h30Directed by Jean Negulesco, Guy Hamilton
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Historical
Themes Children's films
Actors Dana Andrews, Maureen O'Hara, Sybil Thorndike, Fay Compton, Diane Hart, Wilfrid Hyde-White
Roles The Blazer
Rating63%
From a well to do family, Adelaide (Maureen O'Hara), over the objections of her family, marries an impoverished artist Henry Lambert (Dana Andrews) who is later killed in an accident when Adelaide pushes him away. Adelaide is blackmailed for two years by her neighbor, Mrs. Mounsey, a spiteful old hag (Sybil Thorndike) who claims to the police that Henry was killed accidentally.
, 1h25Directed by Vernon Sewell
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Fantastic, Comedy, Fantasy
Themes Ghost films
Actors Robert Morley, Felix Aylmer, Yvonne Arnaud, Claude Hulbert, Abraham Sofaer, Ernest Thesiger
Roles Minette
Rating58%
Two 18th century officers, General Burlap (Morley) and Colonel Kelsoe (Aylmer), are desperate to prevent war, so they hatch a plan to capture the Duke of Marlborough and hold him prisoner until the threat of hostilities passes. Unfortunately, while testing the efficacy of the contraption they have designed to entrap the duke, they manage to kill themselves. Their stupidity incurs the wrath of Queen Anne in the afterlife, and as punishment they are condemned to haunt the Berkeley Square house until such time as a British monarch crosses the threshold of the property.
The Wicked Lady (1946)
, 1h44Directed by Leslie Arliss
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Thriller, Swashbuckler, Adventure, Historical
Actors Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Patricia Roc, Griffith Jones, Michael Rennie, Felix Aylmer
Roles Minor Role (uncredited)
Rating67%
Caroline (Patricia Roc) invites her beautiful, green-eyed friend Barbara (Margaret Lockwood) to her upcoming wedding to wealthy landowner and local magistrate Sir Ralph Skelton (Griffith Jones). A scheming Barbara soon has Sir Ralph totally entranced. Caroline, wishing only his happiness, stands aside, and even allows Barbara to persuade her to be the maid of honour so as to lessen the scandal of the abrupt change of brides. At the wedding reception, Barbara meets a handsome stranger, Kit Locksby (Michael Rennie). It is love at first sight for both, but too late.