Anna Neagle Dies; Starred 69 Years on Stage, Films

LONDON —  Dame Anna Neagle, the famed British actress who had a 69-year stage and film career, died today in a nursing home near London, her agent said. She was 81.

“She hadn’t been ill,” said a friend. “She just faded away, and it seemed to happen in the last 24 hours.”

“We have lost part of the British theater. People of her caliber are very rare,” said Louis Benjamin, owner of the London Palladium where Dame Anna had been appearing until May as the Fairy Godmother in “Cinderella.”

Anna Neagle was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1969 for her services to entertainment.

Born in 1904, she made her stage debut as a dancer in 1917.

Her rise to stardom began in the chorus line of impresario C. B. Cochran at the Theater Royal in London’s Drury Lane in 1925. She appeared in Charlot and Cochran revues in London and New York until 1930, when she began getting roles in musicals and plays.

She formed a partnership with Irish-born film producer Herbert Wilcox, who starred her in 33 of his 300 films and married her in 1943. They had no children. Wilcox died in 1977.

Her films included “Nurse Edith Cavell,” “Victoria the Great,” “Sixty Glorious Years,” “Spring in Park Lane” and “Odette,” based on Odette Hallowes’ World War II exploits in the French Resistance.

The Guinness Book of Records cited Dame Anna as the “most durable leading actress” for her 2,062 performances over six years in the lead role in “Charlie Girl” between 1965 and 1971.