Kathryn Grayson

She was nominated for an Emmy in 1955 for her performance as a blind girl in General Electric Theater's Shadow On The Heart.. She received an OBE in 1983, an honorary DLitt from Lancaster University in 1989, and a DBE (thus becoming a "Dame") in 1993. She left the movies in 1956 for the stage and fulfilled her dream of being in opera. 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. She also played Magnolia in the 1951 version of Show Boat. 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?. Some consider her role as Lili Vanessi in Kiss Me, Kate as her best. Her tireless work for charity and work on television in spite of old age and ill health had made her an institution.

She started out with dreams of being in opera, but MGM scooped her up to be in films. Her most memorable line was, on hearing that her son had been having sex with his girlfriend in her house, "Not on the eiderdown!". The petite soprano was one of MGM Studios' top sopranos of the 1940s & 1950s. 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 has one daughter. 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. She married twice, first to actor John Shelton, second to actor/singer Johnnie Johnston. 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.

Kathryn Grayson (born February 9, 1922) is an American actress and singer who was born Zelma Kathryn Hedrick. Dame Thora Hird'a autobiography, Scene And Hird (1976).