![Nova Pilbeam](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w185/nuf9KqxnrRXpydZYTVvihjvzF3g.jpg)
Nova Pilbeam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nova Margery Pilbeam (15 November 1919 – 17 July 2015) was an English film and stage actress. Pilbeam gained attention as a child stage actress. This led to much work in her teen years. She appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), in which she plays a girl who is abducted, following this with her lead performance as Lady Jane Grey in Tudor Rose (1936). She had a starring role in Hitchcock's Young and Innocent (1937), which she regarded as "the sunniest film I was involved with", and formed a constructive professional relationship with Hitchcock.
She appeared in an early British television drama in 1939. That year David O. Selznick wanted Pilbeam for the lead in Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), and thought she could be an international film star. However, her agent was worried about the length of a five-year contract; meanwhile, Hitchcock, whose outlook on the film was not the same as Selznick's, auditioned hundreds of others over many months, at last giving the role to Joan Fontaine.
Unlike some of her peers, Pilbeam never made a film in Hollywood. She continued acting, with appearances in at least nine British films along with many stage roles, throughout the 1940s. One of her last films was The Three Weird Sisters (1948). She remained working on stage for a short while longer, appearing at the Duchess Theatre in Toni Block's play Flowers for the Living in February 1950.
Pilbeam married Pen Tennyson, a great-grandson of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson and an assistant director to Hitchcock, in 1939. Tennyson became a film director the year they were married, but died in a plane crash in 1941 while working as part of the Admiralty's instructional films unit. She was married to BBC Radio journalist Alexander Whyte from 1950 until his death in 1972. Their child Sarah Jane was born in 1952.
In her last years, Pilbeam lived in Dartmouth Park, north London. She died on 17 July 2015 in London, aged 95.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 2.535 |
Birthday | 1919-11-15 |
Place of Birth | Wimbledon, London, England, UK |
Also Known As | Nova Margery Pilbeam, Нова Пилбим, |
![Young and Innocent](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/knc0wcxarPM6Qy3uOm1RV38JGzS.jpg)
1937
![Young and Innocent](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/knc0wcxarPM6Qy3uOm1RV38JGzS.jpg)
Young and Innocent
6.6/221
Robert Tisdall finds on the beach the corpse of a woman he knew. Others wrongly conclude that he is the murderer. Fleeing, he desperately attempts to...
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Young and Innocent
![The Man Who Knew Too Much](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/cUOHl4PaAEs1e74mO5AUMgis3xT.jpg)
1934
![The Man Who Knew Too Much](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/cUOHl4PaAEs1e74mO5AUMgis3xT.jpg)
The Man Who Knew Too Much
6.446/379
While vacationing in St. Moritz, a British couple receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their daughter has been kidn...
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The Man Who Knew Too Much
![Yellow Canary](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/7MG7y1Sh0lCS7s8L9sUfUXbdgZG.jpg)
1943
![Yellow Canary](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/7MG7y1Sh0lCS7s8L9sUfUXbdgZG.jpg)
Yellow Canary
5.1/15
A socialite poses as a Nazi spy to mask her activities as a British agent.
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Yellow Canary
![Cheer Boys Cheer](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/vwec22q0Z60UOMad1VE3XqYbiiK.jpg)
1939
![Cheer Boys Cheer](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/vwec22q0Z60UOMad1VE3XqYbiiK.jpg)
Cheer Boys Cheer
5.8/5
Shades of "Romeo and Juliet" with rival British Brewery owners who hate each other and their children who fall in love.
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Cheer Boys Cheer
![The Three Weird Sisters](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/A5pHqpDLyqFzS8SAzQ49kS6wGp8.jpg)
1948
![The Three Weird Sisters](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/A5pHqpDLyqFzS8SAzQ49kS6wGp8.jpg)
The Three Weird Sisters
7/3
Three older sisters live on their family estate in Wales. This household once proudly reigned over a mining town, but the mines dried up and the estat...
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The Three Weird Sisters
![Green Fingers](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/6fmOM7vAfq5bvGFqOAFTfhzC2ja.jpg)
1947
![Green Fingers](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/6fmOM7vAfq5bvGFqOAFTfhzC2ja.jpg)
Green Fingers
6/4
A fisherman begins studying to be an osteopath. Although he isn't finished with medical school, he begins treating his landlady's daughter who is beli...
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Green Fingers
![Pastor Hall](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/hD5jmU50GGeEQQB9kiPFovowpXQ.jpg)
1940
![Pastor Hall](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/hD5jmU50GGeEQQB9kiPFovowpXQ.jpg)
Pastor Hall
7.6/7
The village of Altdorf has to come to terms with Chancellor Hitler and the arrival of a platoon of Stormtroopers. The Stormtroopers go about teaching...
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Pastor Hall
![Little Friend](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/fytkbJEiHvSZC6U8BhYao76ADla.jpg)
1934
![Little Friend](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/fytkbJEiHvSZC6U8BhYao76ADla.jpg)
Little Friend
3.5/2
A girl becomes an unwilling witness in her parents' scandalous divorce case.
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Little Friend
![Banana Ridge](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/AedQMPqinYgazNfjwau3447JJ8v.jpg)
1942
![Banana Ridge](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/AedQMPqinYgazNfjwau3447JJ8v.jpg)
Banana Ridge
5.8/4
When Susie Long appears, together with her 20 year old son, Pink and Pound are thrown into confusion that one of them could be his father.
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Banana Ridge
![Counterblast](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/AnGPMlkfGd4WMAwT8ilx76af1cr.jpg)
1948
![Counterblast](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/AnGPMlkfGd4WMAwT8ilx76af1cr.jpg)
Counterblast
6/5
An escaped World War 2 Nazi doctor impersonates a murdered English doctor so he can work on a vaccination to protect the Germans in their planned germ...
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Counterblast
![Tudor Rose](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/wAjrOMLdMFiidBNOLBszK8Oj4oy.jpg)
1936
![Tudor Rose](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/wAjrOMLdMFiidBNOLBszK8Oj4oy.jpg)
Tudor Rose
8.1/7
The tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, the young queen who reigned in England for nine days before she was executed.
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Tudor Rose
![Prison Without Bars](https://nicosiaefe.gov.cy/video/assets/no-poster.png)
1939
![Prison Without Bars](https://nicosiaefe.gov.cy/video/assets/no-poster.png)
Prison Without Bars
0/0
1939 BBC studio production of Peggy Barwell’s play Prison without Bars, set in a girls’ reformatory, which was adapted from a German play by Gina Kaus...
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Prison Without Bars
![The Next of Kin](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/6YdI9vg3WVF4e5b8acbTaegS2vn.jpg)
1942
![The Next of Kin](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/6YdI9vg3WVF4e5b8acbTaegS2vn.jpg)
The Next of Kin
5/6
Wartime propaganda piece giving the warning "Be like Dad, Keep Mum". A gossipy housewife is overheard talking about what her son is doing by a Nazi sp...
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The Next of Kin
![Spring Meeting](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/jWl8YJJPnHi0SJu6eAEPCewgUXr.jpg)
1941
![Spring Meeting](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/jWl8YJJPnHi0SJu6eAEPCewgUXr.jpg)
Spring Meeting
4.8/5
Tiny Fox-Collier and her son, Tony, are broke. A cheery and handsome young man about town, Tony knows he can rely on his mother for a brainwave to sav...
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Spring Meeting
![Out of Chaos](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/otuEwq0JkyfTkWkPAbosjy43UIo.jpg)
1944
![Out of Chaos](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/otuEwq0JkyfTkWkPAbosjy43UIo.jpg)
Out of Chaos
0/0
Examines the role of art in WWII; featuring Henry Moore's drawings of London Underground during bombing raids, Paul Nash's paintings of aircraft dumps...
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Out of Chaos
![This Man Is Mine](https://nicosiaefe.gov.cy/video/assets/no-poster.png)
1946
![This Man Is Mine](https://nicosiaefe.gov.cy/video/assets/no-poster.png)
This Man Is Mine
0/0
One wartime Christmas the well-to-do Ferguson family extends a festive welcome to various strays, with comic results.
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