THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MARGARET

 

Thanks to PBS Americans are familiar with the various actresses who played Agatha Christie’s iconic character Miss Marple in the British television adaptations of the novels – Joan Hickson, Julia McKenzie and Geraldine McEwan. 

But I. and my generation. was first introduced to Miss Marple in the four films in the early 1960s starring Dame Margaret Rutherford (MURDER SHE SAID, MURDER AT THE GALLOP, MURDER MOST FOUR, and MURDER AHOY), and in an uncredited cameo in 1965’s THE ALPHABET MURDERS starring Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot. 

Rutherford is also remembered as Grand Duchess Gloriana XIII of Grand Fenwick in THE MOUSE ON THE MOON and for her 1963 best supporting actress Oscar turn as The Duchess of Brighton in THE VIPs. 

Rutherford went into acting rather late in life, making her stage debut at the Old Vic in 1925 at age 33.  She achieved West End prominence as Miss Prism in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at the Globe Theatre in 1939.  In 1941 she was the bumbling medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward's BLITHE SPIRIT at the Piccadilly Theatre, a role which Coward wrote for her.  She was also in the film adaptations of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST and BLITHE SPIRIT. 

She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1961 and was raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1967.

What makes Margaret Rutherford a topic for discussion is not her professional career but her personal life and family history.

Her father, William Rutherford Benn, suffered from mental illness.  During his honeymoon he had a nervous breakdown and was confined to an asylum.  In March of 1883, after being released on holiday, he bludgeoned his father, Congregational minister Julius Benn, to death with a chamber pot.  He later tried to kill himself by slashing his throat with a pocketknife.  Benn was confined to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.  Several years later he was released, reportedly cured of his mental affliction.  He changed his name to Rutherford and returned to his wife Ann.

Margaret Rutherford was born in 1892 in Balham, the only child of William Rutherford Benn’s second wife Florence.   As an infant Margaret and her parents moved to India.  She returned to England when she was three to live with an aunt in Wimbledon after her pregnant mother committed suicide by hanging herself from a tree.  Her father also returned to England and was confined once more to Broadmoor in 1904.

She married character actor Stringer Davis in 1945 and the couple appeared in many productions together, including all the Marple movies and THE MOUSE ON THE MOON.  They were happily together until Rutherford's death.  Davis nursed Rutherford through periods of depression, often involving stays in mental hospitals and electric shock treatment.  In the 1950s, Rutherford and Davis unofficially adopted the writer Gordon Langley Hall, then in his twenties.  Hall later had a sex-change operation and became Dawn Langley Simmons, under which name she wrote a biography of Rutherford in 1983 

Rutherford suffered from Alzheimer's disease at the end of her life and was unable to work.  She died on May 22, 1972, at age 80. 

Before I go, here is some Miss Marple trivia: 

* While it was thought Agatha Christie did not approve of Rutherford’s portrayal of Marple, Christie dedicated her novel THE MIRROR CRACK'D "To Margaret Rutherford in admiration".

* Joan Hickson, who starred as Marple in the 1984 to 1992 BBC adaptations of the original Miss Marple novels, played a housekeeper in the first film in which Margaret Rutherford played Marple.

 * Before she updated the Marple retired school teacher detective character to the perhaps more famous Jessica Fletcher, Angela Lansbury was Jane Marple in the 1980 film THE MIRROR CRACK’D, whose cast included Rock Hudson, Liz Taylor, Kim Novak, Tony Curtis and Pierce Brosnan.  And Helen Hayes assumed the role in two tv movies.

* A few years ago, it was reported that The Walt Disney Company had acquired the movie rights to the Miss Marple character, and is planning a contemporary adaptation to be set in the US with Jennifer Garner as Marple.  However, I have heard nothing on this since.

TTFN