Betty Ann Davies

Betty Ann Davies (24 December 1910 – 14 May 1955) was a British stage and film actress active from the 1920s to the 1950s. Davies made her first stage appearance at the Palladium in a revue in 1924. The following year she joined Cochran's Young Ladies in revues such as One Dam Thing After Another and This Year of Grace. Davies enjoyed a long and distinguished West End career which included The Good Companions (1934), Morning Star (1942), Blithe Spirit (1943) and Four Winds (1953). Her outstanding stage triumph was in the role of Blanche du Bois, which she took over from Vivien Leigh, in the original West End production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Davies appeared in 38 films, most notably as the future Mrs Polly in The History of Mr. Polly and in the first of the St Trinian's films The Belles of St. Trinian's, and was active in TV at the time of her death. She went into hospital on May 14, 1955, to have an operation for appendicitis, but suffered from complications following surgery and died the same day. She was 44. She left one son, Brook Blackford.