Nova Pilbeam
1919 - 2015Nova Margery Pilbeam (15 November 1919 – 17 July 2015) was an English film and stage actress. Pilbeam gained attention as a child stage actress. This led to much work in her teen years. She appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), in which she plays a girl who is abducted, following this with her lead performance as Lady Jane Grey in Tudor Rose (1936). She had a starring role in Hitchcock's Young and Innocent (1937), which she regarded as "the sunniest film I was involved with", and formed a constructive professional relationship with Hitchcock.
She appeared in an early British television drama in 1939. That year David O. Selznick wanted Pilbeam for the lead in Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), and thought she could be an international film star. However, her agent was worried about the length of a five-year contract; meanwhile, Hitchcock, whose outlook on the film was not the same as Selznick's, auditioned hundreds of others over many months, at last giving the role to Joan Fontaine.
Unlike some of her peers, Pilbeam never made a film in Hollywood. She continued acting, with appearances in at least nine British films along with many stage roles, throughout the 1940s. One of her last films was The Three Weird Sisters (1948). She remained working on stage for a short while longer, appearing at the Duchess Theatre in Toni Block's play Flowers for the Living in February 1950.
Pilbeam married Pen Tennyson, a great-grandson of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson and an assistant director to Hitchcock, in 1939. Tennyson became a film director the year they were married, but died in a plane crash in 1941 while working as part of the Admiralty's instructional films unit. She was married to BBC Radio journalist Alexander Whyte from 1950 until his death in 1972. Their child Sarah Jane was born in 1952.
In her last years, Pilbeam lived in Dartmouth Park, north London. She died on 17 July 2015 in London, aged 95.
Pastor Hall
Roy Boulting
Wilfrid Lawson, Nova Pilbeam
This film is based on the true story of Pastor Martin Neimuller, who was sent to Dachau concentration camp for criticising the Nazi party. The small German village of Altdorf in the 1930's has to come to terms with Chancellor Hitler and the arrival of a platoon of Stormtroopers (preceded by a flock of sheep). The Stormtrooper go about teaching and enforcing 'The New Order' but Pastor Hall is a kind and gentle man who won't be cowed. Some villagers join the Nazi party avidly, some just go along with things, hoping for a quiet life but Pastor Hall takes his convictions to the pulpit.
Pastor Hall
Young and Innocent
Alfred Hitchcock
Nova Pilbeam, Derrick De Marney
Robert Tisdall finds on the beach the corpse of a woman he knew. Others wrongly conclude that he is the murderer. Fleeing, he desperately attempts to prove that he is not the killer. A young woman becomes embroiled in the effort.
Young and Innocent
The Three Weird Sisters
Daniel Birt
Nancy Price, Mary Clare
Three older sisters live on their family estate in Wales. This household once proudly reigned over a mining town, but the mines dried up and the estate and the town have fallen on hard times. When the land crumbles and a number of homes in the town are destroyed the sisters promise to rebuild the homes.
The Three Weird Sisters
Out of Chaos
Jill Craigie
Diana Beaumont, Nova Pilbeam
Examines the role of art in WWII; featuring Henry Moore's drawings of London Underground during bombing raids, Paul Nash's paintings of aircraft dumps, Stanley Spencer's shipbuilding panels, Evelyn Dunbar's land girls, alongside many amateur artists too.
Out of Chaos
Green Fingers
John Harlow
Robert Beatty, Carol Raye
A fisherman begins studying to be an osteopath. Although he isn't finished with medical school, he begins treating his landlady's daughter who is believed to have a chronic illness. He seems to cure her, and the case draws a lot of attention, some of it negative because he was unlicensed when he treated her. He still does not have a degree when he marries the daughter and begins practising osteopathy.
Green Fingers
Spring Meeting
Walter C. Mycroft, Norman Lee
Enid Stamp-Taylor, Michael Wilding
Tiny Fox-Collier and her son, Tony, are broke. A cheery and handsome young man about town, Tony knows he can rely on his mother for a brainwave to save them from utter destitution. This she has: a visit is scheduled to the Irish country estate of her old flame Sir Richard Furze, now a wealthy widower with two daughters. But while Tiny is determined to see her son marry the beautiful but haughty Joan, it seems Tony only has eyes for Joan’s spirited younger sister, Baby.
Spring Meeting
