Joan Hickson: the best Miss Marple

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Admirers of good English cinema immediately understand who they are talking about as soon as they hear the name Joan Hickson. Despite the fact that there are about a hundred paintings in her acting luggage, she became famous precisely because of the role of Miss Marple in the television series of the same name based on the works of Agatha Christie. And in our country, Hickson was recognized and loved in the second half of the eighties, when on weekends, sitting in front of the TV, they watched how a sweet old woman in a hat famously unravels complex crimes, wiping the nose of the police.

Childhood and future plans

Joan Hickson was born in the last summer month of 1906 in Great Britain, the city of Kingsthorpe (the English county of Northamptonshire) in the family of Edith Mary Bogle and Alfred Harold Hickson, who was engaged in the production of shoes. When she was five years old, she attended a children's play dedicated to Christmas. There, little Joan saw pantomime for the first time and firmly decided that she wanted to become an actress and work only in the theater.

After graduation, the girl enters the Royal Academy of Drama. And already in 1927, she first appeared on stage in a play,based on the play "The Tragic Muse".

The whole world is theater…

For several years, the young actress has been touring the country. Joan Hickson appeared on the stages of several theaters until fate brought her to the West End. There she was offered the role of comedy and several eccentric heroines.

After the first appearance on the stage, seven long years passed before the actress received an offer to act in films. As a rule, the roles that she was offered to play were only minor ones, but Hickson endowed each heroine played with a piece of herself. And she had a great comedic talent. Therefore, all the characters played by her remained in the memory of the audience for a long time.

In the lens of a movie camera

The film debut of Joan Hickson, whose films are still watched with great interest, took place in 1934. It was a British comedy called Trouble in the Store. The first picture was, as they say, "with a bang", and then Hickson quite successfully continued her growing film career, acting, however, for the most part in comedic images.

Among the list of her early works are "The Man Who Works Miracles" (according to H. G. Wells) and "The Love of a Stranger" (according to Agatha Christie).

The famous writer of the most interesting detective stories of the twentieth century, to some extent, influenced the future career of Joan Hickson. One day, Christie saw Hickson play on the theater stage in a production of her play Appointment with Death. She was pleasantly surprised andamazed. She even sent a letter to the actress, in which she expressed the hope that her favorite literary heroine - Miss Marple - would be embodied on the screen by Joan Hickson and no one else. Joan was grateful to Agatha Christie for such a high appreciation of her professionalism. But as for the cute observant old woman who knows how to notice everything and figure out the killer, she was not sure.

However, Christie's wish came true thirty-eight years after the statement.

Roles in films and on the theater stage

During her long and interesting life, Joan Hickson, whose filmography includes more than a hundred works, has played a lot of characteristic, albeit small roles. Among them, one can single out a funny drunken maid named Rosemary in the film Up and Down (in Hickson's career it was a rather memorable role), a caring and trying to please everyone nurse in the cute comedy Keep It Up, Sister!, the staid Mrs. Kidder in the novel Agatha Christie She Said Murder. Yes, the work of the great detective writer was with her side by side for several decades. During this period, Hickson was most often offered the roles of mothers and grandmothers, landlords and housewives, in general, very respectable ladies.

But the theater stage gave her the role of Delia in the play "The Farce in the Bedroom". Initially, the play was staged in London at the National Theater, a little later - on Broadway. It was this role that earned her the prestigious Tony Theater Award in 1979. There were also performances of "Autostrada","Careless Spirit" and others.

Hello Miss Marple

Joan Hickson was stunningly beautiful in her youth. Photos only confirm this truth. And yet, this did not prevent her in her declining years from playing the old woman "God's dandelion", who has a tenacious mind, attention, the ability to collect facts and analyze them, finding the truth.

So, 1984. Channel "BBC" starts showing television films, the main character in which is a sweet old lady - Miss Marple. It was for this role, the role of an amateur detective who easily solves the most difficult and intricate crimes, that Joan Hickson was invited. She tried to combine insight and integrity in her heroine. Thanks to her, Miss Marple turned out to be very real, alive, loved by millions of viewers. She became the best performer of this role, as well as David Suchet - Hercule Poirot, and Vasily Livanov - Sherlock Holmes. Filming of twelve television films continued for several years, until 1992. These are “Pocket Full of Rye”, “At 4.50 from Paddington” and others. This would be a high point for the actress. Twice she was a contender for the British Academy of Film and Television Awards, although she failed to receive the award.

Queen Elizabeth I has always been a big fan of Agatha Christie's work. After viewing these pictures, she awarded Joan Hickson an MBE for her performance as Miss Marple.

Being at a very advanced age, she continued to come to the set until 1992, after which she told everyone,who is retiring. The last film in which she starred - "Century" - was released a year later. And on October 17, 1998, Joan Hickson quietly passed away in Colchester. She was 92 years old.