Wendy Hiller Quotes
Luckily, West End audiences seem to rather like very old people.
"Dame Wendy Hiller." The Daily Telegraph, 16 May 2003.
She and many of the other white activists were called “do-gooders” by the Southern authorities of communities which were integration demonstration targets. The term was derogatory in the South, but Mrs. Peabody and others were proud of the term as that was exactly their purpose—to do good. Mrs. Peabody, and the wives of a number of wives of Christian Bishops, black and white, went to a restaurant in St. Augustine and requested service which was contrary to the segregation laws of Florida at the time. The women were arrested. The act of civil disobedience in integrating the restaurant was one act of a planned desegregation strategy worked out with Martin Luther King’s SCLC organization. The mature age of the women and their prominent husbands brought a great deal of newspaper coverage which is just what the demonstrators wanted. The photo is of Mrs. Peabody getting arrested. See {637404} and {637405} for more on this incident.
Dame Wendy Margaret Hiller, DBE was an English film and stage actress who enjoyed a varied acting career that spanned nearly sixty years. The writer Joel Hirschorn, in his 1984 compilation Rating the Movie Stars, described her as "a no-nonsense actress who literally took command of the screen whenever she appeared on film". Despite many notable film performances, she chose to remain primarily a stage actress.
