English actress Sybil Thorndike was BOTD in 1882. Born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, the daughter of an Anglican vicar, she showed an early interest in music, training as a classical pianist at the Guildhall School of Music. When a medical problem ruled out a professional career, and she trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. In 1904, she joined actor-manager Ben Greet’s theatre company, undertaking a four-year tour of the United States. Returning to England in 1908, she was invited by George Bernard Shaw to star in a revival of his play Candida. She later joined Annie Horniman’s theatre company in Manchester, where she met and married fellow actor Lewis Casson, having four children together. She became a West End star in 1909, appearing in four plays in repertory, followed by a successful stint on Broadway. Returning to London at the outbreak of World War One, she joined the Old Vic Theatre in 1914, becoming famous for her mastery of Shakespearean roles. Due to the shortage of young male actors, she also played a number of male roles, including Prince Hal in Henry IV Part I, Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Fool in King Lear. In 1924, she created the role of Joan of Arc in Shaw’s play Saint Joan, which became one of her signature roles. A committed Socialist, she supported striking workers during the 1926 General Strike, and worked with Emma Goldman to establish a charity for displaced Spanish families during the Spanish Civil War. During the Second World War, she undertook extensive tours through rural England. She returned to the Old Vic after the war, nurturing the early careers of John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. She valiantly came to Gielgud’s defence after his arrest for cottaging in 1953, arranging for hate mail to be redirected from the stage door to her. Though predominantly a stage actress, she played the heroic nurse Edith Cavell in the 1928 silent film Dawn, and appeared in two films directed by Olivier, including 1958’s The Prince and the Showgirl, co-starring Marilyn Monroe. She continued performing into old age, undertaking extensive tours through Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia. Created a Dame of the British Empire, she continued to perform into old age, undertaking a tour of Australia in 1962 when she was 80. She and Casson remained married until his death in 1969. Thorndike is thought to have been bisexual, and may have had an affair with the American actress Tallulah Bankhead, though little evidence exists of any other relationships with women. After Casson’s death, she retired from acting, dying in 1976, aged 93. She was played by Judi Dench in the 2011 film My Week With Marilyn, chronicling the turbulent production of The Prince and the Showgirl.