Norma Deloris Engstrom, known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, Lee created a sophisticated persona, writing music for films, acting, and recording conceptual record albums combining poetry and music. Called the "Queen of American pop music," Lee recorded over 1,100 masters and composed over 270 songs.
With 1945 being the last year of World War II, the many films released this year had themes of patriotism, sacrifices, and peace. In the United States, there were more than eighteen thousand movie theatres operating in 1945, a figure that grew by a third from a decade earlier.
Bettina Catherine Welch was a New Zealand-born Australia-based actress, primarily in radio and theatre and of the latter in television roles. She was best known for her role in television soap opera Number 96 as Maggie Cameron, a scheming businesswoman and fashion editor.
Georgette Lizette "Googie" Withers, CBE, AO was an English entertainer. She was a dancer and actress, with a lengthy career spanning some nine decades in theatre, film, and television. She was a well-known actress and star of British films during and after World War II.
Dead of Night is a 1945 black and white British anthology supernatural horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Sally Ann Howes and Michael Redgrave. The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.
Dorothy Hyson, Lady Quayle was an American-born film and stage actress who worked largely in England. During World War II, she worked as a cryptographer at Bletchley Park.
Robert Hamer was a British film director and screenwriter best known for the 1949 black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets and the now acknowledged 1947 classic It Always Rains on Sunday.
Margaret Ritchie (1903–1969) was an English soprano who sang opera, oratorio and song. She created a number of operatic roles. In 1946 she was the first Lucia in The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten, and in 1947 she was the first Miss Wordsworth in the same composer's Albert Herring.
Catherine Lacey was an English actress of stage and screen.
David Mervyn Johns was a Welsh stage, film and television actor who became a fixture of British films during the Second World War.
Michael Truman was a British film producer, director and editor.
Elizabeth Maud Edwards, professionally known as Maudie Edwards, was a Welsh actress, radio broadcaster, comedian, dancer and singer, best remembered for having spoken the first line of dialogue in soap opera Coronation Street, and playing Elsie Lappin in the first two episodes. She was previously best known to listeners of the radio programme Welsh Rarebit, which attracted weekly audiences of 10 million.
Roland Pertwee was an English playwright, film and television screenwriter, director and actor. He was the father of Doctor Who actor Jon Pertwee and playwright and screenwriter Michael Pertwee. He was also the second cousin of actor Bill Pertwee and grandfather of actors Sean Pertwee and Dariel Pertwee.
The House of Hate is a 1918 American film serial directed by George B. Seitz, produced when many early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Mary Diana Morgan was a Welsh playwright, screenwriter and novelist, mostly associated with her work for Ealing Studios as Diana Morgan. She was married to fellow screenwriter Robert MacDermot.
All at Sea is a 1935 British comedy film directed by Anthony Kimmins and starring Googie Withers, Tyrell Davis and Rex Harrison. Its plot follows a young man who falls in love during a cruise, and takes up a false identity as a famous writer to impress her.
The Loves of Joanna Godden is a 1947 British historical drama film directed by Charles Frend and produced by Michael Balcon. The screenplay was written by H. E. Bates and Angus MacPhail from the novel Joanna Godden (1921) by Sheila Kaye-Smith.
Mary Merrall, born Elsie Lloyd, was an English actress whose career of over 60 years encompassed stage, film and television work.
Amy Mary Dalby was an English actress of stage and screen, often in kindly or eccentric spinster roles.
Margaret Ann Barton is a British retired actress. She is best known for her role in the 1945 David Lean film Brief Encounter in which she played Beryl Walters, a girl who works in the railway station cafe.
