Ellen Pollock

Ellen Pollock

Born: July 29, 1903
Died: March 29, 1997
in Heidelberg, Germany
Ellen Pollock (29 June 1902 – 29 March 1997) was a British character actress, mainly appeared on stage in London's West End. She also appeared in several films and TV productions.

A devotee of Bernard Shaw, she was president of the Shaw Society from 1949. In their obituary, the Independent wrote "Pollock is believed to have played, in a career spanning 72 years, more Shavian heroines than anyone else. She directed London seasons of his plays; and it was during the London premiere of one of his lesser-known works – Farfetched Fables (Watergate, 1950) – that she announced Shaw's death from the stage."

Pollock's dedication to acting began as a seven-year-old, when she saw Sarah Bernhardt on stage; she knew then that she wanted to be an actress herself. Pollock was also a theatre director and a teacher of drama at RADA and Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art; and her varied television work included several appearances in The Forsyte Saga for the BBC.

She outlived both husbands, Captain Leslie Hancock and the artist James Proudfoot. She had one child with Captain Hancock. Pollock was the subject of TV's This Is Your Life in 1992.

Ellen Pollock's mother, Hedwig Kahn, was the sister of Otto Hermann Kahn (wealthy investment banker, collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts) and composer Robert Kahn. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Movies for Ellen Pollock...

Horror Hospital
Title: Horror Hospital
Character: Olga ("Aunt Harris")
Released: May 11, 1973
Type: Movie
Following his forced retirement from an appalling rock band, Jason decides to vacation at Brittlehouse Manor, a health farm run by the leather-gloved, ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Storm. Along the way, Jason meets Judy, also on her way to Brittlehouse Manor to visit her aunt, who married Dr. Storm some years ago. Once they arrive, the pair realise rather quickly that something is wrong, probably because the other guests have had their brains surgically removed, or all the blood pouring from the sink, or possibly just because the creepy midget keeps telling them to brush their teeth.
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Title: Ooh La La!
Character: Mama
Released: April 6, 1968
Type: TV
Series based on the short French farces written by Georges Feydeau, Eugène Labiche, Marc Michel and Sacha Guitry. All of them include mistaken identities and impeccable timing.
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Finders Keepers
Title: Finders Keepers
Character: Grandma
Released: December 8, 1966
Type: Movie
Cliff Richard and the Shadows arrive in a small Spanish town for a concert when a U.S. plane accidentally drops a mini-bomb on it. The Shadows look for the bomb to return it.
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Who Killed the Cat?
Title: Who Killed the Cat?
Character: Ruth Prendergast
Released: October 7, 1966
Type: Movie
A scheming widow tries to persecute three old ladies, but fate takes its revenge on her.
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Rapture
Title: Rapture
Character: Landlady
Released: August 23, 1965
Type: Movie
Agnes, a lonely teenage girl, and her father befriend an escaped convict, named Joseph, who arrives at their farm in Brittany, France. When Joseph develops an attraction to Agnes, her father threatens to break up the union.
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So Evil, So Young
Title: So Evil, So Young
Character: Miss Smith
Released: January 1, 1961
Type: Movie
A young girl is framed for a robbery and sent to a harsh reform school, where she becomes the target of a vicious warden.
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The Hypnotist
Title: The Hypnotist
Character: Miss Barbara Barton
Released: July 29, 1957
Type: Movie
Culver is a psychiatrist who uses hypnotism to treat his patients. When Carpenter, a test pilot, comes to see him complaining of blackouts that make his job difficult, Culver tries to mesmerise him into killing his wife.
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The Time of His Life
Title: The Time of His Life
Character: Lady Florence
Released: January 1, 1955
Type: Movie
Mr Pastry's social climbing daughter, president of a society for the rehabilitation for ex-convicts, hides the fact that her father is himself a prisoner. When he is released and arrives at her home, she panics and locks him in the attic until a job can be found for him, preferably abroad!
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The Fake
Title: The Fake
Character: Miss Fossett
Released: September 25, 1953
Type: Movie
Someone is stealing priceless paintings from the great museums of the world and replacing them with nearly flawless forgeries. Leonardo da Vinci's "Madonna and Child" is being shipped to London's Tate Gallery for a special exhibition, and Paul Mitchell is assigned to protect it. Upon the painting's arrival, Paul realizes it has been switched. Eager to collect the museum's $50,000 reward, he teams up with Mary Mason, a Tate employee, to recover the original.
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To Have and to Hold
Title: To Have and to Hold
Character: Roberta
Released: March 1, 1951
Type: Movie
A man is permanently crippled in a horseback riding accident and then learns that he will soon die. He spends his last few days taking care of his family and trying to get his wife to find another man.
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Something in the City
Title: Something in the City
Character: Mrs. Holley
Released: September 1, 1950
Type: Movie
A man hides the fact that he lost his job from his wife by apparently going off to work each day as normal but runs into trouble when he is tailed by a reporter.
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Warning to Wantons
Title: Warning to Wantons
Character: Baroness de Jammes
Released: January 4, 1949
Type: Movie
Featuring an early role for accomplished French actress Anne Vernon alongside Mary Poppins star David Tomlinson, this effervescent comedy charts the romantic adventures of a young woman who swaps her strict convent school for the heady pleasures of high society. Seventeen-year-old Renee slips away from her convent school, joins her fashionable mother and launches herself into Society with one aim: to conquer the hearts of all the men she encounters. Setting her sights on Max, a bridegroom-to-be, her expert scheming and manipulative behaviour soon ensures that he falls under her spell... but his fiancee isn't giving up without a fight
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Bedelia
Title: Bedelia
Character: McKelvey's Housekeeper
Released: July 8, 1946
Type: Movie
Bedelia Carrington is living happily, it appears, in Monte Carlo with her husband Charlie Carrington. But a cultivated young artist, Ben Chaney, begins probing into her past with curious concern. Chaney, who is really a detective, learns that Bedelia's obsession for money has led her, in the past, to husband-poisoning for the insurance money.
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Don Chicago
Title: Don Chicago
Character: Lady Vanessa
Released: August 6, 1945
Type: Movie
Timid Don Chicago yearns to follow in the footsteps of his gangster mother, but is forced by the Mulligan Gang to leave America. In England, he tangles with a British police officer and high society.
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Kiss the Bride Goodbye
Title: Kiss the Bride Goodbye
Character: Gladys Dodd
Released: January 28, 1945
Type: Movie
Working-class girl Joan Dodd's plan to marry Jack Fowler is thwarted when her mother Gladys interferes. Hoping to improve her daughter's social status, Gladys arranges for Joan to wed her boss Adolphus Pickering while Jack is away at war. Jack arrives home to discover his love is engaged to another man. Who will Joan decide to marry?
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Spare a Copper
Title: Spare a Copper
Character: Lady Hardstaff
Released: December 2, 1940
Type: Movie
George is an inept reserve policeman working in wartime Liverpool, who is chosen by a gang of Nazi saboteurs as the stooge for their planned destruction of the British battleship HMS Hercules. Framed by the villains and forced to go on the run, George sets out to clear his name with the aid of new girlfriend, Jane.
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Sons of the Sea
Title: Sons of the Sea
Character: Margaret Hulls
Released: December 23, 1939
Type: Movie
The head of Dartmouth Training College has been murdered, and his successor, Captain Hyde, suspects that he himself may have been the intended target. He enlists the help of his own son Philip, a reluctant cadet at the college, to help him confirm his suspicions about planned enemy action... but meanwhile, there is a Secret Service agent staying at the college observatory, the foreign-born professor of astronomy is behaving strangely, and Naval Intelligence disclaim any knowledge of what is going on...
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Millions
Title: Millions
Character: Janet Mason
Released: September 21, 1937
Type: Movie
Two feuding millionaires try to destroy each other's business while their children fall in love with each other.
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Non-Stop New York
Title: Non-Stop New York
Character: Miss Harvey
Released: September 13, 1937
Type: Movie
A young woman finds herself as the intended victim of a murder plot on a transatlantic flight from London to New York.
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The Street Singer
Title: The Street Singer
Character: Gloria Weston
Released: March 1, 1937
Type: Movie
Following an argument with his co-star during the rehearsals for a new stage show, famous singer Richard King walks out of the theatre, still wearing his ragged stage costume. Mistaken for a beggar, he’s taken in by a pair of street entertainers and joins their act incognito.
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Aren't Men Beasts!
Title: Aren't Men Beasts!
Character: The Vamp
Released: January 19, 1937
Type: Movie
Two businessmen have the shock of their lives when a woman appears out of their past bearing a 23 year old son - and one of them may be the father!
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Splinters in the Air
Title: Splinters in the Air
Character: Charles' Wife
Released: January 1, 1937
Type: Movie
An inventor is mistaken for his twin brother, and is forced to take his brother's place in the Royal Air Force.
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The Happy Family
Title: The Happy Family
Character: Leo Hutt
Released: January 1, 1936
Type: Movie
A mother and father who, in order to shock their extended family out of their idle spendthrift ways, pretend to have lost all their money.
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It's a Bet
Title: It's a Bet
Character: Mrs. Joe
Released: February 1, 1935
Type: Movie
A young English reporter makes a bet with a wealthy publisher that he can disappear for a month. In his absence the publisher makes much of the mysterious disappearance in an attempt to boost the circulation of his newspaper.
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Heads We Go
Title: Heads We Go
Character: Madame
Released: July 28, 1933
Type: Movie
A model inherits a great deal of money and pretends to be a movie star.
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The Last Coupon
Title: The Last Coupon
Released: July 21, 1932
Type: Movie
A frugal coal miner turns into a spendthrift when he wins £20,000 on the football pools!
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The First Mrs Fraser
Title: The First Mrs Fraser
Character: Maid
Released: April 18, 1932
Type: Movie
'Rich man returns to first wife on finding second wife loves younger man.' (British Film Catalogue)
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My Wife's Family
Title: My Wife's Family
Character: Dolly White
Released: June 3, 1931
Type: Movie
Farcical confusions ensue when newlywed bride Peggy Gay overhears her husband Jack discussing the purchase of a piano, and somehow interprets what he has said to mean he is the father of an illegitimate child.
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Night Birds
Title: Night Birds
Character: Flossie
Released: October 16, 1930
Type: Movie
Early British thriller about a master criminal named 'Flash Jack', who heads a gang of top-hatted thieves that rob the wealthy. A detective tracks the crimes to a posh night club.
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Too Many Crooks
Title: Too Many Crooks
Character: The Other Girl
Released: August 1, 1930
Type: Movie
A man tries to burgle his own safe on the same night that a professional criminal attempts it.
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The Informer
Title: The Informer
Character: Prostitute
Released: October 16, 1929
Type: Movie
A man betrays his best friend, a member of a terrorist organisation, to the authorities and is then pursued by the other members of the organisation.
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Piccadilly
Title: Piccadilly
Character: Vamp (uncredited)
Released: February 1, 1929
Type: Movie
A young Chinese woman, working in the kitchen at a London dance club, is given the chance to become the club's main act.
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Moulin Rouge
Title: Moulin Rouge
Character: Girl
Released: March 21, 1928
Type: Movie
An odd and tightly directed tale of a singer/dancer at the Moulin Rouge, who meets her daughter's fiance, only to have him fall obsessively in love with her and she with him. Alienation, betrayal and near tragedy result.