Diana Napier

Diana Napier

Born: January 31, 1905
Died: March 12, 1982
in Bath, Somerset, England, UK
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Diana Napier (31 January 1905 – 12 March 1982) was an English film actress. She was born Alice Mary Ellis in Bath, Somerset and died in Windlesham, Surrey, aged 77.

Napier, known to her family as "Mollie", was married three times. Her first husband was the actor G.H. Mulcaster whom she married in 1927 and later divorced. Her second was the Austrian tenor, Richard Tauber (1891–1948), to whom she was married from 1936 until his death, and her third was the Polish artist, Stanislaw Wolkowicki (1902-1965), whom she had met during the war and married in 1953. He died in 1965, and she was buried with him in the Churchyard of St Michael and All Angels, Sunningdale, Berkshire in 1982.

Napier was the daughter of Major APB Ellis, an ENT specialist and sometime army surgeon, and Alice Napier. She took her mother's maiden name as her screen name. Having spent much of her childhood in South Africa, where she attended the Maris Stella School in Durban, the family returned to England and she embarked on a stage career. After a few years in repertory, she was offered a screen test by Alexander Korda, and made a few films before he dropped her. She then appeared in 1935 opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in Mimi, a film directed by Paul L. Stein, a childhood friend of Richard Tauber, who had directed Tauber's first British film Blossom Time in 1934. It was through Paul Stein she met Tauber, and appeared with him in three films made in 1935/36, the first of them, Heart's Desire, under Stein's direction. For five years, 1935 until 1940, she rented the Villa Capri at Elstree, where she lived with Tauber from the time of their marriage.

In April 1940 she joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, and after basic training joined an Ambulance Unit in Scotland, where she cared for Polish Soldiers, eventually becoming an NCO in a Polish unit. She later joined the Polish Welfare Unit in London, early in 1945 she travelled to Holland with the Red Cross to care for Polish soldiers escaping from Germany, and after VE Day moved to Meppen in Germany, receiving a high commendation from General Clemens Rudnicki for her work on behalf of Polish Servicemen.

Shortly before Tauber's death, she set up an artists studio in Beauchamp Place, which became the design and display company Diana Display Ltd. (later DNT Associates) based in Parsons Green, Fulham, London. She published a biography of her husband in 1949, a volume of autobiography (My Heart and I, 1959), and collaborated with Charles Castle on This was Richard Tauber, a book and a film issued in 1971 to mark what would have been Tauber's 80th birthday.

Movies for Diana Napier...

Bait
Title: Bait
Character: Eleanor Parton
Released: January 31, 1950
Type: Movie
John Bentley stars as a man who returns home to claim his inheritance. He soon learns his half brother has spent his fortune and is mixed up with jewel thieves
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Pagliacci
Title: Pagliacci
Character: Trina
Released: December 11, 1936
Type: Movie
Canio and his Comedia dell'Arte troupe tour Italy. His wife Nedda meets a young cadet and they plan to elope. He tries to leave her when he finds how important she is for his husband, but a rejected trouper interferes. As jealous Canio suspects the truth the tragedy approaches. The film was partly made in Ufacolor.
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Land Without Music
Title: Land Without Music
Character: Princess-Regent Maria Renata
Released: October 7, 1936
Type: Movie
Believing real life is an operetta, the citizens of the European country Lucco break into song at every blink of an eye. Since everybody's singing, nobody works, there's no money to pay taxes, and the country faces bankruptcy, leading the ruling princess to declare all music illegal. Enter opera singer Richard Tauber and American journalist Jimmy Durante to save the day and lead the citizens to march on the palace in protest--and in song.
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Heart's Desire
Title: Heart's Desire
Character: Diana Sheraton
Released: August 1, 1935
Type: Movie
Richard Tauber, the great Austrian tenor, features in the story of a singing peasant from a Vienna beer-garden who conquers London, but at a cost...
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Mimi
Title: Mimi
Character: Mme. Sidonie
Released: March 28, 1935
Type: Movie
A struggling playwright in 1850s Paris and his mate finds love that furnishes him with the inspiration he has long sought.
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Falling in Love
Title: Falling in Love
Character: Gertie
Released: September 4, 1934
Type: Movie
British comedy. It was released in the United States the following year under the alternative title Trouble Ahead.
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The Warren Case
Title: The Warren Case
Character: Pauline Warren
Released: July 30, 1934
Type: Movie
Chided by his boss for a conspicuous lack of sensational stories, Lewis Bevan takes matters into his own hands to revive his flagging career.
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The Rise of Catherine the Great
Title: The Rise of Catherine the Great
Character: Countess Vorontzova
Released: February 9, 1934
Type: Movie
The woman who will become Catherine the Great marries into the Russian royal family when she weds Grand Duke Peter, the nephew of Empress Elizabeth. Although the couple has moments of contentment, Peter's cruel and erratic behavior causes a rift between him and Catherine. Mere months after Peter succeeds his aunt as the ruler of Russia, a revolt is brewing, and Catherine is poised to ascend to the throne as the country's new empress.
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The Private Life of Don Juan
Title: The Private Life of Don Juan
Character: A Lady of 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.
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For Love of You
Title: For Love of You
Character: The Wife
Released: November 1, 1933
Type: Movie
The second of two "Jack and Jim" musicals, starring Arthur Roscoe and Naunton Wayne.
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Her First Affaire
Title: Her First Affaire
Character: Margot Merton
Released: December 7, 1932
Type: Movie
A headstrong young girl falls completely for a writer of trashy novels, and insinuates herself into his household, all to the chagrin of her erstwhile fiancé.He conspires with the author's wife to show the girl how foolish she's been.
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Wedding Rehearsal
Title: Wedding Rehearsal
Character: Mrs. Dryden
Released: October 1, 1932
Type: Movie
The grandmother of a British nobleman, reluctant to marry, plays matchmaker. He outmaneuvers her by getting all of the matches married off .
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The Farmer's Wife
Title: The Farmer's Wife
Character: Sibley Sweetland
Released: March 2, 1928
Type: Movie
Successful middle-aged farmer Samuel Sweetland becomes widowed, then his daughter marries and leaves home. Deciding he wishes to remarry, Sweetland pursues some local women he considers prospects.