Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric character. Her signature drawling, deep voice was a result of nodules on her vocal cords she developed in the 1920s and early 1930s.
After success as a child actress, she established a stage career spanning comedy, drama, experimental theatre, and radio broadcasting. Finding her milieu in revue, she played from the 1930s to the 1950s, co-starring several times with the English actress Hermione Baddeley. Later she played formidable elders in the film and stage musicals Gigi , Bell, Book and Candle , The Music Man , and A Little Night Music .
From the early 1950s, Gingold lived and made her career mostly in the U.S. Her American stage work ranged from John Murray Anderson's Almanac to Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad , the latter of which she played in London. She became a well-known guest on television talk shows. She made appearances in revues and toured in plays and musicals until an accident ended her performing career in 1977.
Wikipedia
“Contrary to popular belief, English women do not wear tweed nightgowns.”
Saturday Review, 16 April 1955; quoted in Ned Sherrin, The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations
The World is Square [her autobiography], Pt. I. Pub. 1945 by Home & Van Thal Ltd.
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