British stage and screen actress Thora Hird specialized in loquacious working class types. The wide-eyed, thin-lipped actress seemed destined from birth to portray maids, landladies, clerks and charwomen. To add variety to this narrow acting category, Hird became an expert in a variety of regional British accents. In films from 1940's Spellbound (not the Hitchcock picture of the same name), Thora brightened her fleeting moments in such films as The Courtneys of Curzon Street (1947), The Good Companions (1950), The Galloping Major (1951), The Creeping Unknown (1956) and A Kind of Loving (1962). In 1978, she wrote her autobiography, Seen and Hird. Thora Hird was the mother of Janette Scott, a former child actress who became a popular and attractive film leading lady of the late '50s and early '60s (As Long as They're Happy (1957), Day of the Triffids (1963), etc).
by Hal Erickson
biography
