MOIRA LISTERMoira Lister, Vicomtesse d’Orthez , who died on 27 October, 2007, aged 84, was a versatile actress who was equally acclaimed for her serious roles and comedy performances.She was a regular cast member on Hancock’s Half Hour, the pioneering radio sit-com, at the same time as she was appearing in a Shakespearean production at the Palace Theatre in London.In a prolific career she built a reputation as a consummate and reliable actress with high standards for her profession, and was regarded within the industry as having a regal air about her, something which was boosted by her marriage into French nobility.She was born on 6 August, 1923, in Cape Town, South Africa. Her parents were the British Army Major James Lister and his wife Margaret Hogan. She was raised a Catholic and educated in a convent in Johannesburg.She was given acting lessons from an early age and appeared on stage for the first time at six with the University of Johannesburg’s theatre group. At 14 she appeared with Sir Seymour Hicks in Vintage Wine – so impressed was Sir Seymour that he invited the young actress to make a film with him. The film was cancelled when they arrived back in England, but in lieu she made her first stage appearance in London in Post Road (1937).She appeared in several more plays in South Africa before moving to England in 1944 where she had a successful run playing female leads with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford and made her first film appearance in Shipbuilders.She continued to get regular film work and by the end of the decade was acting in television and radio plays, where her classic good looks and husky voice added to her noble image. She also appeared alongside Noel Coward in his comedy play Present Laughter in 1947. She would later stage a one-woman show about Coward.She was generally cast as refined and sometimes cold-hearted by members of high society, but proved her acting skill in farces such as Don't Listen Ladies! (her 1948 Broadway debut) and with darkly-comedic roles such as hapless victim in Wanted for Murder (1946).In the 1950s she acted alongside such luminaries as Vivien Leigh in The Deep Blue Sea (1955) and Tyrone Power in Seven Waves Away (1956) and was also cast in a string of successful Broadway productions.She first worked with Tony Hancock in 1954, on the second series of his Star Bill radio show, replacing Hancock's previous lady foil, Geraldine McEwan. The following year she was part of a recurring cast in Hancock’s Half Hour alongside the likes of Bill Kerr and Sid James.She left Hancock’s Half Hour after one series to concentrate on her film career, though it was the theatre that took up most of her time, with productions of King Lear and Much Ado About Nothing at the Palace Theatre, London.She continued to spread her work in the different mediums throughout her career and was still acting in films and television as late as 1990. She wrote an autobiography, The Very Merry Moira (named after the late ’60s sitcom The Very Merry Widow in which she starred), in 1969 and was featured on This Is Your Life in 1971. Among her honours for acting is the prestigious Naledi Award for a lifetime’s services to South African theatre which she received in 2006.She was devotedly married to Jacques de Gachassin-Lafite, Vicomte d’Orthez, a French cavalry officer who was a veteran of the Rif War, and they had two daughters, Chantal and Christobel. She died in Cape Town and was survived by her children.
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