Gwen Ffrangcon-davies Twentieth-century Actress

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies is a paradox; a famous actress whose career spanned most of the twentieth century she is now largely forgotten. Drawing on material held in her personal archive, this study argues that the representation of Ffrangcon-Davies, on and off the stage, can be read in terms of its constructions of normative female behaviours. Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies is a paradox; a famous actress whose career spanned most of the twentieth century, she is now largely forgotten. Her personal story is a journey through a social and cultural landscape in which what it meant to be a woman, an actress and a lesbian shifted enormously. Drawing on material held in her personal archive, this study demonstrates how the career of Ffrangcon-Davies, on and off the stage, can be read against the grain of its apparent conventionality. This book reveals a skilled navigator of social and professional networks who excelled in playing with notions of identity and confounded society's expectations, finally defying all attempts at reductive categorization. Review: 'In this fascinating and poignant biography, Grime moves between dominant and hidden histories, to revise and revive the life and work of Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, revealing not only a radical and unexpected story but also the power that the dominant history had to suppress it - a dominance which Ffrangcon-Davies felt compelled to uphold, both as an actress and as a woman.' Gilli Bush-Bailey, Royal Holloway, University of London