Bonita Granville

Bonita Granville has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to Motion Pictures, at 6607 Hollywood Boulevard. She received an OBE in 1983, an honorary DLitt from Lancaster University in 1989, and a DBE (thus becoming a "Dame") in 1993. Granville died of cancer in Santa Monica, California. Thora Hird's energy and resilience were such that, even following the news that she had suffered a stroke, BBC bosses were still hoping that she would recover in order to appear in the next series of Last of the Summer Wine. The couple remained married until Wrather's death in 1984. Although in recent years she had been thought of as a stereotypical old woman (with many jokes about her sideline advertising stairlifts), some of her youthful film work still survives, including her 1942 appearance in the classic wartime propaganda film Went the Day Well?. She appeared in the film version of The Lone Ranger in 1956, and made her final screen appearance in a cameo role in The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981). Her tireless work for charity and work on television in spite of old age and ill health had made her an institution.

He bought the rights to both The Lone Ranger and Lassie characters and Granville worked as a producer for several film and television productions featuring these characters. Her most memorable line was, on hearing that her son had been having sex with his girlfriend in her house, "Not on the eiderdown!". Her career gradually began to fade by the mid 1940s, and in 1947 she married Jack Wrather who had produced some of her films. Dame Thora's talent for comedy was shown to good effect in her performance as the potential battleaxe mother-in-law to Victoria Wood's character in the TV film Pat and Margaret. She is also remembered for her starring role in the World War II anti-Nazism film Hitler's Children (1943). Thora Hird was mainly associated with television comedy, notably the sitcoms Meet the Wife (a 1960s classic) and later series of Last of the Summer Wine. However, she played a variety of roles, including the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, and won a BAFTA Best Actress award for her role in one of Alan Bennett's monologues. As a young adult, she was once again cast in supporting roles, often in prestigious films such as Now, Voyager (1942) as well as two Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney. Dame Thora Hird (May 28, 1911 - March 15, 2003) was a veteran British actress born in the Lancashire seaside town of Morecambe. She was the mother of the actress Janette Scott, and thus formerly the mother-in-law of the singer Mel Tormé.

The film was a success and Granville reprised her role in three further films. Dame Thora Hird'a autobiography, Scene And Hird (1976). In 1938 she played the girl-detective Nancy Drew for the first time. Despite this success, the next few years brought her few opportunities to build her career although she continued to work. As that child, Granville was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Renamed These Three, it told the story of three adults (played by Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, and Joel McCrea) who find their lives almost destroyed by the malicious lies of an attention seeking child. Over the next couple of years she played uncredited supporting roles in such films as Little Women (1933) and Anne of Green Gables (1934) before playing the role of Mary in the film adapation of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Granville was the daughter of stage actors, and made her film debut at the age of nine in Westward Passage (1933). Bonita Granville (February 2, 1923 – October 11, 1988) was an American film actress, and later in life a successful television producer.