Margaret Leighton

Tall, reedy, thin-browed, light-haired British award-winning theatre actress Margaret Leighton was born in Worchestershire, England, on February 26, 1922, the daughter of a businessman. Expressing an early desire to act, she quit school at age 15 and auditioned and joined Sir Barry Jackson's Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Becoming one of his star students, he hired her as a stage manager and offered her the small role of Dorothy in the stage play 'Laugh with Me' (1938). Thereby, the play marked her professional debut on stage as 'Dorothy. The play was immediately taken to the BBC-TV (Laugh with Me (1938)). During these productive repertory years, she involved herself in the classical plays Chekov, Shakespeare, and Shaw, among others.. In 1944, Margaret made her London debut for the Old Vic Company playing the daughter of the troll king in '"Peer Gynt." Joining the company under the auspices of Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir Ralph Richardson, she earned distinction as a classical stage ac