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Notes

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Sacked as assistant stage manager from the Manchester Repertory Theatre, Hiller was recalled when a Lancashire accent was required for the heroine in Ronald Gow and Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole (1934). In 1935, George Bernard Shaw saw her in London and invited her to play the title role in St Joan at the Malvern Festival and Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, in 1936. She later appeared in films of Pygmalion (1938), for which she received an Oscar nomination, and Major Barbara (1940). Hiller won an Oscar in the film of Rattigan's Separate Tables (1958). Other films included Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Elephant Man (1980).
This portrait of Hiller as Sally Hardcastle in Love on the Dole, anticipates land girls and John Betjemen's poetic heroines.

National Portrait Gallery, London

London

Title

Dame Wendy Margaret Hiller

Date

c.1935

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 111.7 x W 81.5 cm

Accession number

6656

Acquisition method

Given by the sitter's son and daughter, Anthony Hiller Gow and Ann Gow, 2003

Work type

Painting

National Portrait Gallery, London

St Martin’s Place, London, Greater London WC2H 0HE England

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Artist or maker

Thomas Cantrell Dugdale

1880–1952

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