Miss Gladys Cooper

I really like this coloization job. First, it was an excelllent choice for colorization because of the inward, personal face of Miss Cooper - I suspect this was a posed shot of her in some current stage role she may have been in - I hesitate to suggest it but "Ophelia" in "Hamlet" comes to mind, especially after Ophelia goes mad (before her suicide) and appears decked out in leaves and flowers. The reason I hesitate to fully say it is Ophelia is that I would imagine the facial expression would be wilder if it was at that point in the play. Even so the soft greens, browns, and pinks (slightly offset by the violets) in the colorization helps give a thoughtful and mellow tone to the picture. The whole effect that results is gentle, as the actress's facial expression would invite the observers or audience to feel or empathize with.

Cooper was a fortunate Edwardian stage star, as one of the youngest to blossom in that theater of Shaw and Somerset Maugham. She was middle aged when movies began to talk, and soon was part of the "British Colony" in Hollywood. There she would be the wronged "Lady Nelson" in "That Hamilton Woman", the villainess in "The Black Cat" (1940), and the sorrowing mother (married to Roland Young) whose aviation hero son is killed before coming home on furlough in "Forever and a Day" (1943). Her best remembered early role was as the demanding, unloving mother of Bette Davis in "Now Voyager". But she remained active as an actress for many more years, even appearing on television in the comedy series "The Rogues" with David Niven, Charles Boyer, and Gig Young in 1962. Her final important part as "Mrs. Higgins" (mother of "Professor Henry Higgins") in "My Fair Lady was quite a nice comic turn. In her personal life her daughter married the actor Robert Morley, and her grandson Sheridan Morley was a well known critic and writer. We are lucky that film and television left us a record of her fine acting achievements