Athene Seyler

Athene Seyler

Born: May 31, 1889
Died: September 12, 1990
in Hackney, London, England, UK
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Athene Seyler, CBE (31 May 1889 – 12 September 1990) was an English actress.

Although better known as a stage actress - she first appeared on the stage in 1909 - she made her film debut in 1921, and became known for playing slightly dotty old ladies in many British films from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Her most memorable stage credits included Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals, Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, and a double-act, with her good friend Dame Sybil Thorndike, as the murderous spinster sisters in Arsenic and Old Lace.

Her film and television career lasted into the 1960s, and included roles in The Citadel (1938), Night of the Demon (1957), and The Avengers (1964, 1965). She was also a regular cast member in screen adaptations of Charles Dickens' novels.

She virtually retired from acting after 1970, but continued making public appearances until well into the 1980s. In 1990, at the age of 101, she appeared at the National Theatre, talking about her long life and career.

Athene Seyler was President of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) from 1950, and a member of the Theatrical Ladies' Guild. She also wrote The Craft of Comedy.

She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1959.

Movies for Athene Seyler...

Don't Utter a Note
Title: Don't Utter a Note
Character: Nellie Pringle
Released: April 9, 1966
Type: Movie
Two well meaning spinsters' plans in reforming an old jailbird, receive a set back, when unexpectedly into their possession comes a substantial amount of money, which was not made by the Royal Mint.
bee
The Invasion
Title: The Invasion
Character: Lady Corm
Released: March 31, 1963
Type: Movie
Inhabitants in a remote village laughs off and dismiss a couple of schoolboys' claims that they are being invaded by aliens.
bee
Nurse on Wheels
Title: Nurse on Wheels
Character: Miss Farthingale
Released: January 3, 1963
Type: Movie
Quietly competent young Joanna moves with her scatterbrain mother to a country village to take up her first job as District Nurse. She soon overcomes the suspicion of her patients used to someone rather older, while becoming romantically involved with a local farmer - at least until he tries to evict a newly-arrived expectant couple who park their caravan on his land.
bee
I Thank a Fool
Title: I Thank a Fool
Character: Aunt Heather Chandler
Released: September 14, 1962
Type: Movie
After mercifully killing her terminally ill lover, Dr. Christine Allison loses her medical license and spends two years in prison. Once she has completed her sentence, the lawyer who prosecuted Christine, Stephen Dane, hires her to care for his emotionally unstable wife, Liane. Christine takes the job, but when Liane's allegedly dead father reappears, Christine sets out to reveal the family's dark secrets.
bee
The Girl on the Boat
Title: The Girl on the Boat
Character: Mrs Adelaide Hignett
Released: August 5, 1962
Type: Movie
Norman Wisdom does to P.G. Wodehouse in Girl on the Boat what Jerry Lewis did to Gore Vidal in Visit to a Small Planet. The zany Wisdom, put in charge of his aunt's cottage during an English summer in the roaring twenties, decides to invite several of his friends to his posh new digs. Among the invitees is the title character, played by the delightful comedienne Millicent Martin. All sorts of slapstick chaos ensues, but Wisdom manages to save the day before things get hopelessly out of hand. Like Jerry Lewis, Norman Wisdom is an acquired taste, but he's worth sampling at least once. ...The Girl on the Boat
bee
Two and Two Make Six
Title: Two and Two Make Six
Character: Aunt Phoebe Tonks
Released: May 1, 1962
Type: Movie
An US airman stationed in the UK strikes down his commanding officer. Believing he killed him, the airman goes on the run with a girl. They run into a couple that looks like them and a mix up happens.
bee
Satan Never Sleeps
Title: Satan Never Sleeps
Character: Sister Agness
Released: February 22, 1962
Type: Movie
A priest arrives at a mission-post in China accompanied by a young native girl who has joined him along the way. His job is to relieve the existing priest, who is now too old and weak to continue with the upkeep of the church. However, Communist soldiers arrive at the mission and seize it as a command post. Their leader rapes the native girl and impregnates her, only later to realize that Communism is no good for him. In the end, the foursome flee to the border, but are pursued by Communist forces along the way.
bee
Francis of Assisi
Title: Francis of Assisi
Character: Aunt Buona
Released: July 12, 1961
Type: Movie
In 13th century Italy, Francis Bernardone, the son of an Assisi merchant, renounces a promising army career in favor of a monastic life and starts his own religious order, sanctioned by the Pope.
bee
Title: The Avengers
Released: January 7, 1961
Type: TV
The Avengers is a British television series created in the 1960s. It initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed. Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants. His most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish and assertive women: Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King. Later episodes increasingly incorporated elements of science fiction and fantasy, parody and British eccentricity.
bee
Visa to Canton
Title: Visa to Canton
Character: Mao Tai Tai
Released: December 26, 1960
Type: Movie
A former World War II pilot, now the owner of a travel agency in Hong Kong, gets involved in espionage trying to help a Chinese woman locate her son.
bee
Make Mine Mink
Title: Make Mine Mink
Character: Dame Beatrice Appleby
Released: August 9, 1960
Type: Movie
In a mansion block in Knightsbridge, a gang of middle-aged biddies decide to brighten up "the dullness of the tea time of life" by staging a series of robberies on furriers, then donating the proceeds to charitable concerns. Terry Thomas as a retired army officer leads the gang, which includes Athene Seyler and Hattie Jacques, on a series of capers that nearly go awry when their maid, Billie Whitelaw, an ex-con and also a resident of the block, falls for a police officer.
bee
Title: The Third Man
Released: October 2, 1959
Type: TV
bee
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Title: The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Character: Jeannie Lawson
Released: December 11, 1958
Type: Movie
All her life, Englishwoman Gladys Aylward knew that China was the place where she belonged. Not qualified to be sent there as a missionary, Gladys works as a domestic to earn the money to send herself to a poor, remote village. There she eventually lives a full and happy life: running the inn, acting as "foot inspector", advising the local Mandarin, and even winning the heart of mixed race Captain Lin Nan. But Gladys discovers her real destiny when the country is invaded by Japan and the Chinese children need her to save their lives. Based on a true story.
bee
Happy Is the Bride
Title: Happy Is the Bride
Character: Aunt Harriet
Released: March 4, 1958
Type: Movie
In a quiet summer corner of Wiltshire that is forever England, David and Janet decide to tie the knot. Unfortunately this is the cue for everyone else to take over proceedings, to the dismay of the couple and the increasing despair of Janet's father.
bee
A Tale of Two Cities
Title: A Tale of Two Cities
Character: Miss Pross
Released: February 7, 1958
Type: Movie
British barrister Sydney Carton lives an insubstantial and unhappy life. He falls under the spell of Lucie Manette, but Lucie marries Charles Darnay. When Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned family retainer, he becomes entangled in the snares of the brutal French Revolution and is himself jailed and condemned to the guillotine. But Sydney Carton, in love with a woman he cannot have, comes up with a daring plan to save her husband.
bee
Night of the Demon
Title: Night of the Demon
Character: Mrs. Karswell
Released: November 9, 1957
Type: Movie
American professor John Holden arrives in London for a conference on parapsychology only to discover that the colleague he was supposed to meet was killed in a freak accident the day before. It turns out that the deceased had been investigating a cult lead by Dr. Julian Karswell. Though a skeptic, Holden is suspicious of the devil-worshiping Karswell. Following a trail of mysterious manuscripts, Holden enters a world that makes him question his faith in science.
bee
Campbell's Kingdom
Title: Campbell's Kingdom
Character: Miss Abigail
Released: September 3, 1957
Type: Movie
Given only six months to live, Englishman Bruce Campbell goes to Canada to claim "Campbell's Kingdom", the land he inherited from his grandfather. In order to clear his grandfather's name and prove there is oil on the land, Campbell must face up to a ruthless contractor and work against the clock to find oil before "Campbell's Kingdom" is flooded by a new power dam.
bee
How to Murder a Rich Uncle
Title: How to Murder a Rich Uncle
Character: Grannie (Victoria Clitterbern)
Released: June 1, 1957
Type: Movie
A broke British nobleman targets his Canadian uncle, but other relatives get in the way.
bee
Doctor at Large
Title: Doctor at Large
Character: Lady Hawkins
Released: March 26, 1957
Type: Movie
Losing out to Dr. Bingham (Michael Medwin) in a competition for house surgeon when he offends a member of the board, young Dr. Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde) finds himself going from post to post, filling in for other physicians. At one distant country post, he is taken aback when he works with a patient whose husband died after Simon treated the man years before. In another hospital, Simon examines a surprisingly mature teen and also tries courting devoted nurse Nan McPherson (Shirley Eaton).
bee
Yield to the Night
Title: Yield to the Night
Character: Miss Bligh
Released: June 19, 1956
Type: Movie
Locked in her cell, a murderer reflects on the events that have led her to death row.
bee
As Long as They're Happy
Title: As Long as They're Happy
Character: Mrs. Arbuthnot
Released: March 15, 1955
Type: Movie
The suburban peace of the Bentley household is shattered when John Bentley is informed by his wife Stella that their two married daughters, Pat and Corrine are in trouble and need funds to come home and bring their husbands, Peter, a penniless Parisian artist and Barnaby, a Texas cowboy, with them. And the youngest daughter, Gwen, has tricked an American singer, Bobby Denver, into visiting them on the pretext that it is the home of a noted British film magnate. When all the women in the household --- including the maid --- fall for the singer's charms, Bentley consults a crackpot psychiatrist, Dr. Schneider, who almost succeeds in ousting, not the singer, but Bentley's wife, with his advice to Bentley to make her jealous by living it up with Pearl, a showgirl recruited for the purpose.
bee
For Better, for Worse
Title: For Better, for Worse
Character: Miss Mainbrace
Released: June 20, 1954
Type: Movie
In postwar London a young graduate and his girlfriend decide to marry. Her well-to-do parents are not convinced, but they agree once he has got a £5.10.0 job and a 30/- a week single-room flat. The newly-weds find money fearfully tight, the flat cramped, the neighbours a trial, and her parents always hovering. Can faith conquer all? Is there some way of getting rid of tea-leaves except down the sink?
bee
The Weak and the Wicked
Title: The Weak and the Wicked
Character: Millie Williams
Released: February 2, 1954
Type: Movie
Jean Raymond an upper class woman with a gambling addiction, is given a twelve-month prison sentence resulting from her inability to pay her debts. At first she is overwhelmingly depressed by life in the women's prison; gradually, however, her misery is relieved by the many close friends she makes there. This sympathetic drama traces the contrasting lives and often faltering progress of the inmates of a women's prison.
bee
The Beggar's Opera
Title: The Beggar's Opera
Character: Mrs. Trapes
Released: August 24, 1953
Type: Movie
Adaptation of John Gay's 18th century opera, featuring Laurence Olivier as MacHeath and Hugh Griffith as the Beggar.
bee
The Pickwick Papers
Title: The Pickwick Papers
Character: Miss Witherfield
Released: November 14, 1952
Type: Movie
The Pickwick Club sends Mr. Pickwick and a group of friends to travel across England and to report back on the interesting things they find...
bee
Made in Heaven
Title: Made in Heaven
Character: Miss Honeycroft
Released: November 1, 1952
Type: Movie
Residents of the small English village of Dunmow react in comical ways when the Topham family hires a beautiful and young Hungarian maid.
bee
Treasure Hunt
Title: Treasure Hunt
Character: Consuelo Howard
Released: June 1, 1952
Type: Movie
Short of money the owners of Ballyroden Hall must attempt to run it as a guest house, but not everyone is happy about the plan.
bee
Secret People
Title: Secret People
Character: Mrs. Reginald Kellick
Released: February 5, 1952
Type: Movie
This tale of intrigue finds Valentina Cortese involved in an assassination plot. She helps the police apprehend the conspirators after an innocent bystander is accidentally killed.
bee
Young Wives' Tale
Title: Young Wives' Tale
Character: Nanny Gallop
Released: November 1, 1951
Type: Movie
A post-war housing crisis leaves a shy woman to share a house with two couples. Comic situations arise as the new roomer becomes infatuated with one of the husbands.
bee
The Franchise Affair
Title: The Franchise Affair
Character: Aunt Lin
Released: February 19, 1951
Type: Movie
An English country lawyer weighs the case of a schoolgirl who claims she was kidnapped by two women.
bee
The Queen of Spades
Title: The Queen of Spades
Character: Princess Ivashin
Released: March 16, 1949
Type: Movie
An elderly countess strikes a bargain with the devil and exchanges her soul for the ability to always win at cards. An army officer, who is also a fanatic about cards, murders her for the secret, then finds himself haunted by the woman's spirit.
bee
The First Gentleman
Title: The First Gentleman
Character: Miss Knight
Released: March 15, 1948
Type: Movie
The story of a romance between the daughter of the Prince Regent and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.
bee
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
Title: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
Character: Miss La Creevy
Released: March 12, 1947
Type: Movie
A fatherless boy tries to make his fortune despite interference from his rich uncle.
bee
Dear Octopus
Title: Dear Octopus
Character: Aunt Belle
Released: September 20, 1943
Type: Movie
Three generations of a family gather together to celebrate a golden wedding anniversary, while the family secretary has the unenviable task of smoothing out all the deep-set hostilities and jealousies.
bee
Letter from Home
Title: Letter from Home
Character: Mrs Ashford
Released: December 1, 1941
Type: Movie
Two evacuee children living in the United States receive a letter from their mother, Mrs Taylor, telling them of her life in Blitz-era London. Glimpses of the events of Mrs Taylor's typical day, including ration shopping and fire warden training, belie the letter's innocuous statements.
bee
Quiet Wedding
Title: Quiet Wedding
Character: Aunt Mary
Released: April 19, 1941
Type: Movie
A young couple become engaged, but enjoy a number of comedic aventures before their wedding day.
bee
Young Man's Fancy
Title: Young Man's Fancy
Character: Milliner
Released: July 31, 1939
Type: Movie
An aristocrat falls in love with a human cannonball
bee
The Saint in London
Title: The Saint in London
Character: Mother Buckley
Released: June 30, 1939
Type: Movie
Suave soldier of fortune Simon Templer gets mixed up with a gang of counterfeiters who've murdered and robbed an European count of 1,000,000 pounds. He is aided reluctantly by Scotland Yard inspector Teal, who's convinced that Templar himself pulled off the heist, and less reluctantly by light-fingered Dugan and dizzy socialite Penny Parker.
bee
The Ware Case
Title: The Ware Case
Character: Mrs Pinto
Released: December 2, 1938
Type: Movie
An aristocrat won't economize, then his rich brother in law is found murdered in the grounds of the aristocrat's house
bee
The Citadel
Title: The Citadel
Character: Lady Raebank
Released: October 29, 1938
Type: Movie
Andrew Manson, a young, idealistic, newly qualified Scottish doctor arrives in Wales takes his first job in a mining town, and begins to wonder at the persistent cough many of the miners have. When his attempts to prove its cause are thwarted, he moves to London. His new practice does badly. But when a friend shows him how to make a lucrative practice from rich hypochondriacs, it will take a great shock to show him what the truth of being a doctor really is.
bee
Jane Steps Out
Title: Jane Steps Out
Character: Grandma
Released: May 16, 1938
Type: Movie
Wallflower Jane Wilton has always lived in the shadow of her beautiful and popular sister Beatrice. Making things worse, Beatrice is spiteful and cruel, directing all manner of nastiness towards the submissive and uncomplaining Jane. But when Beatrice sets her cap for Jane's erstwhile boy friend Basil Gilbert, she goes a shade too far. For once, the worm turns, and Jane fights tooth and nail to win her man back. A retelling of the Cinderella story.
bee
Sailing Along
Title: Sailing Along
Character: Victoria Gulliver
Released: April 15, 1938
Type: Movie
Sailing Along is a 1938 British musical comedy film directed by Sonnie Hale and starring Jessie Matthews, Barry MacKay, Jack Whiting, Frank Pettingell, Noel Madison and Alastair Sim. A barge-owner's adopted daughter falls in love with his son, and gives up her chances of stardom to be with him
bee
Non-Stop New York
Title: Non-Stop New York
Character: Aunt Veronica
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.
bee
The Lilac Domino
Title: The Lilac Domino
Character: Madame Alary
Released: March 31, 1937
Type: Movie
In this musical, an enigmatic masked woman catches the roving eye of a wily playboy gambler at a masquerade ball. If he knew that she was using her wiles as bait and was planning to reform him of his gambling womanizing ways after catching him, he may have head for different waters.
bee
The Mill on the Floss
Title: The Mill on the Floss
Character: Mrs. Pullet
Released: January 9, 1937
Type: Movie
Romeo and Juliet in 1930s England. The owner of the mill and the local lord are in conflict over water rights. The lord wins threatening the mill owner with financial ruin.
bee
The Sky’s the Limit
Title: The Sky’s the Limit
Character: Miss Prinny
Released: January 1, 1937
Type: Movie
Romance of an absent minded designer of planes and a famous singer to whom he tries to sell his friends' songs.
bee
Sensation
Title: Sensation
Character: Madame Henry
Released: December 16, 1936
Type: Movie
Pat Heaton may be the best crime reporter in town but his fiancée Claire, despairing of the more tawdry aspects of his profession, makes him promise to give the job up. When a pretty waitress is found murdered, however, Pat falls in line with the rest of the 'Murder Gang' the pack of reporters who gather to glean stories by fair means or foul!
bee
It's Love Again
Title: It's Love Again
Character: Mrs. Durland
Released: May 6, 1936
Type: Movie
Elaine Bradford is a young singer and dancer, looking for her big break. Peter Carlton is a gossip columnist facing a deadline and a blank page. So, Peter invents "Mrs. Smythe-Smythe", a mysterious Englishwoman who spends her days hunting tigers in India, jumping out of airplanes, and generally driving men mad with her beauty. Since no one in London has ever seen Mrs. Smythe-Smythe, Elaine decides to impersonate the lady, in hopes that the publicity will land her the big break she's been looking for.
bee
Scrooge
Title: Scrooge
Character: Scrooge's Charwoman
Released: November 26, 1935
Type: Movie
Ebenezer Scrooge, the ultimate Victorian miser, hasn't a good word for Christmas, though his impoverished clerk Cratchit and nephew Fred are full of holiday spirit. In the night, Scrooge is visited by spirits of the past, present, and future.
bee
Moscow Nights
Title: Moscow Nights
Character: Madame Anna Sabine
Released: November 5, 1935
Type: Movie
During the First World War, Russian officer Ignatoff, wounded, falls in love with his nurse, Natasha. But she is subject to an upcoming marriage of family convenience to Brioukow, a wealthy industrialist of peasant stock. Brioukow is unjustifiably jealous, since Natasha has not betrayed him. He forces Ignatoff into his debt as a means of humiliating him. When Ignatoff's new friend, Madame Sabline, offers to pay his debt, preventing his ruin, Ignatoff comes quickly to realize that Madame Sabline has an ulterior motive, one that could prove dangerous to more lives than just Ignatoff's.
bee
Drake of England
Title: Drake of England
Character: Queen Elizabeth
Released: May 16, 1935
Type: Movie
Imposing Canadian-born stage actor and playwright Matherson Lang was one of the twentieth century's great Shakespearean players, and became Britain's foremost screen actor during the 1920s; in Drake of England, one of his final films, he takes the title role in Arthur Woods' portrayal of the life and times of the flamboyant piratical adventurer who founded Britain's sea fortunes. From clandestine romance at the court of Elizabeth I to conquests in the newly discovered lands of South America and spectacular victory over the Armada, Drake of England offers a panoramic overview of Drake's life.
bee
The Private Life of Don Juan
Title: The Private Life of Don Juan
Character: Theresa, the Innkeeper, a Middle Aged Lady of Young Sentiment
Released: January 1, 1934
Type: Movie
What do women want? Don Juan is aging. He's arrived secretly in Seville after a 20 year absence. His wife Dolores, whom he hasn't lived with in five years, still loves him. He refuses to see her; he fears the life of a husband. She has bought his debts and will remand him to jail for two years if he won't come to her. Meanwhile, an impostor is climbing the balconies of Seville claiming to be Don Juan.
bee
Blossom Time
Title: Blossom Time
Character: Archduchess Maria Victoria
Released: January 1, 1934
Type: Movie
World-renowned tenor Richard Tauber features in a dramatisation of the life of Schubert, focusing on the composer's unrequited love for a dance master's daughter.
bee
Early to Bed
Title: Early to Bed
Character: Frau Waiser
Released: August 8, 1933
Type: Movie
'Manicurist Grete and nightclub waiter Carl share a bed, but not at the same time. They hate each other, even though they have never met. Their rented room is next to a cinema with its frankfurter-munching projectionist and romantic musical numbers that seem to permeate their lives. Might they meet and fall in love?' (BFI)
bee
Tell Me Tonight
Title: Tell Me Tonight
Character: Mrs. Pategg
Released: October 31, 1932
Type: Movie
An Italian operatic tenor is dominated by his female business manager.
bee
The Perfect Lady
Title: The Perfect Lady
Character: Lady Westhaven
Released: November 12, 1931
Type: Movie
'Girl poses as maid of French actress who stole her fiancé.' (British Film Catalogue)
bee
The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick
Title: The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick
Character: Rachel Wardle
Released: November 1, 1921
Type: Movie
A club man's country jaunt with friends leads to a breach of promise suit by a landlady.