Googie Withers

Googie Withers
Born	Georgette Lizette Withers 12 March 1917(1917-03-12) Karachi, British India (present-day Karachi, Pakistan)
Died	15 July 2011(2011-07-15) (aged 94) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1935–2002
Spouse	John McCallum (m. 1948–2010; his death)
Children	Joanna, Nicholas, Amanda

Georgette Lizette "Googie" Withers CBE, AO (12 March 1917 – 15 July 2011) was an English theatre, film and television actress. She was a longtime resident of Australia with her husband, the actor John McCallum, with whom she often appeared. She was a well-known actress during the war and post-war years.

Biography

An Anglo-Indian, Withers was born in Karachi, then part of British India, to Edgar Withers, a captain in the Royal Navy, and a Dutch-German mother named Zitette. She acquired the name "Googie" (Little Pigeon) at a young age from her ayah (nanny). As a child, she learned Urdu.^{[citation needed]} Her father left the Royal Navy to manage a foundry in Birmingham, England, and Googie was sent to a boarding school near Dover. She began acting at the age of twelve. A student at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, she was a dancer in a West End production when she was offered work as a film extra in Michael Powell's The Girl in the Crowd (1935). She arrived on the set to find one of the major players in the production had been dismissed and was immediately asked to step into the role.

During the 1930s, Withers was constantly in demand in lead roles in minor films and supporting roles in more prestigious productions. Her best known work of the period was as one of Margaret Lockwood's friends in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938). Among her successes of the 1940s was the Powell and Pressburger film One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), a topical World War II drama in which she played a resistance fighter who helps British airmen return to safety from behind enemy lines. She is remembered for her role as the devious Helen Nosseross in Night and the City (1950), a classic film noir.^{[citation needed]}

While filming The Loves of Joanna Godden (1947), Withers met her co-star, the Australian actor John McCallum. They were married on 24 January the following year, and remained married until McCallum's death in 2010.

Withers first toured Australia in the stage play Simon and Laura. When McCallum was offered the position running J.C. Williamson Theatres, they moved to Australia in 1959. Withers starred in a number of stage plays, including Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea, Desire of the Moth, The First 400 Years (with Keith Michell), Beekman Place (for which she also designed the set), The Kingfisher, Stardust, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and Wilde's An Ideal Husband for the Melbourne Theatre Company; both productions toured Australia. They appeared together in the UK in The School for Scandal at the Duke of York's Theatre in Londons West End and on the subsequent British Council tour of Europe in 1983–4 and in W. Somerset Maugham's The Circle at the Chichester Festival Theatre.^{[citation needed]}

Withers starred on Broadway with Michael Redgrave in The Complaisant Lover and in London with Alec Guinness in Exit the King. During the 1970s, she appeared as Faye Boswell, the governor of a women's prison, in the television series Within These Walls. Because Within These Walls had been a moderate success in Australia, she was approached by producers to play the role of the Governor of the Wentworth Detention Centre in the later series Prisoner, a job which she declined. The role eventually went to Patsy King.^{[citation needed]}

In 1986, Withers starred in the BBC adaptation of Hotel du Lac, which was followed a year later by another BBC production of Northanger Abbey. In 1990, she appeared in ITV's adaptation of Ending Up. Her last screen performance was as the Australian novelist Katharine Susannah Prichard in the 1996 film Shine, for which she and the other cast members were nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for "Outstanding performance by a cast".

In 2002, aged 85, Withers appeared with Vanessa Redgrave in Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan in London's West End.

In 2004, Withers came back into the news when a character on the ITV soap Coronation Street, Norris Cole, quipped that "Googie Withers would turn in her grave". Granada Television was forced to apologise a week later when they realised that she was very much alive.

In October 2007, aged 90 and 89 respectively, Withers and McCallum appeared in an extended interview with Peter Thompson on ABC TV's Talking Heads program.

Death

Withers died on 15 July 2011 at her Sydney home, aged 94. Her husband John McCallum predeceased her on 3 February 2010.

Honours

Withers was appointed an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to drama, in the 1980 Australia Day Honours List. In the 2002 Queen's Birthday Honours List (UK), she was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Family

Withers and McCallum were the parents of three children; actress Joanna McCallum, art director Nicholas and Amanda.

Filmography

• Windfall (1935)
• The Girl in the Crowd (1935)
• The Love Test (1935)
• All at Sea (1935)
• Dark World (1935)
• King of Hearts (1936)
• Accused (1936)
• Her Last Affaire (1936)
• She Knew What She Wanted (1936)
• Crown v. Stevens (1936)
• Crime Over London (1936)
• Pearls Bring Tears (1937)
• Action for Slander (1937)
• Paradise for Two (1937)
• If I Were Boss (1938)
• You're the Doctor (1938)
• Kate Plus Ten (1938)
• The Lady Vanishes (1938)
• Paid in Error (1938)
• Strange Boarders (1938)
• Convict 99 (1938)
• The Gang's All Here (1939)
• Murder in Soho (1939)
• Dead Men are Dangerous (1939)
• Trouble Brewing (1939)
• She Couldn't Say No (1939)
• Busman's Honeymoon (1940)

• Bulldog Sees It Through (1940)
• Jeannie (1941)
• Back-Room Boy (1942)
• One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)
• The Silver Fleet (1943)
• On Approval (1944)
• They Came to a City (1945)
• Dead of Night (1945)
• Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945)
• The Loves of Joanna Godden (1947)
• It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)
• Miranda (1948)
• Traveller's Joy (1949)
• Once Upon a Dream (1949)
• Night and the City (1950)
• White Corridors (1951)
• The Magic Box (1951)
• Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951)
• Derby Day (1952)
• Devil on Horseback (1954)
• Port of Escape (1956)
• Nickel Queen (1971)
• Within These Walls (TV series, 1974–1978)
• Time After Time (1986)
• Country Life (1994)
• Shine (1996)

External links

• Googie Withers at the Internet Movie Database
• Googie Withers at the Internet Broadway Database
• Googie Withers at the National Film and Sound Archive
• Performances listed in the Theatre Archive University of Bristol
• Googie Withers at the British Film Institute's Screenonline