If Margaret Rutherford was this country's greatest example of the comic character actress then Flora Robson must be the best example of the serious character actress. Though she's primarily remembered as portraying tight-lipped spinsters, her actual range of characters was much wider.
She was born in South Shields. Though she studied at RADA and made a good start in her acting career, she stopped acting for four years and took up a job as a factory welfare officer. When the acting bug took hold again she quickly re-established her career. By the time she got a season at The Old Vic, she'd already made a couple of films. Her stage career stage always took precedence so she didn't film too often in the 30s.
It was her role as Queen Elizabeth in Fire Over England that really got her noticed by cinema audiences. This lead to a role in the Hollywood version of Wuthering Heights and one of her very few genuine starring roles in Poison Pen.
After a bit more Hollywood and Broadway, she returned to Britain in the middle of the war to begin her most productive cinema period. For these four years, mostly spent under contract to Rank, she appeared in a handful of much-loved films. Then the stage career took over again and she was off to New York to give her Lady Macbeth.
By the time she came back, the industry had changed and there were fewer decent roles for women. Her later years were spent in the usual round of horror movie and international co-productions, though her stage career still thrived. She was made a Dame in 1960.
| 1931 | A Gentleman of Paris |
| 1931 | Dance Pretty Lady |
| 1933 | One Precious Year |
| 1934 | Catherine the Great |
| 1936 | Fire Over England |
| 1937 | Farewell Again |
| 1939 | Wuthering Heights (U.S.) |
| 1939 | Poison Pen |
| 1939 | We Are Not Alone (U.S.) |
| 1939 | Invisible Stripes (U.S.) |
| 1940 | Sea Hawk (U.S.) |
| 1941 | Bahama Passage (U.S.) |
| 1943 | Saratoga Trunk (U.S.) |
| 1944 | Two Thousand Women |
| 1945 | Great Day |
| 1945 | Caesar and Cleopatra |
| 1945 | The Years Between |
| 1946 | Black Narcissus |
| 1947 | Good Time Girl |
| 1947 | Frieda |
| 1947 | Holiday Camp |
| 1948 | Saraband for Dead Lovers |
| 1952 | The Tall Headlines |
| 1953 | The Malta Story |
| 1954 | Romeo and Juliet |
| 1957 | Innocent Sinners |
| 1957 | High Tide at Noon |
| 1957 | No Time for Tears |
| 1958 | The Gypsy and the Gentleman |
| 1962 | 55 Days at Peking |
| 1963 | Murder at the Gallop |
| 1964 | Guns at Batasi |
| 1964 | Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines |
| 1965 | Young Cassidy |
| 1965 | Seven Women (U.S.) |
| 1966 | The Shuttered Room |
| 1966 | A Cry in the Wind |
| 1967 | Eye of the Devil |
| 1969 | Fragment of Fear |
| 1970 | The Beloved |
| 1971 | The Beast in the Cellar |
| 1972 | Alice's Adventure in Wonderland |
| 1972 | Comedy, Tragedy and All That |
| 1978 | Dominique |
| 1981 | Clash of the Titans |
