Margaret Bannerman

Margaret Bannerman began life as Marguerite Grande. For some reason after the outbreak of World War I, her family moved to England. She began her career at just 19 years of age when she was signed to perform with Charlot’s Revue in 1915. Over the next few years she was tremendously successful in light comedies, making her film debut in 1917. She continued with her stage career and went on to be a rival of such greats as Edith Evans and Sybil Thorndyke. One of her greatest triumphs was her role as Lady George Graystone in the play Our Betters which was performed 548 times. In 1925 she temporarily put her career aside following a nervous breakdown. Recovery was slow in coming but by 1928 she was strong enough to launch a one year tour in Australia. Returning to London, she continued to perform on stage and in film until the mid-1930s but then moved to the United States where she didn’t work again until 1946’s Cluny Brown, the next-to-last film of the great director Ernst Lubitsch. Only two more projects came her way before she fully retired from acting. Margaret Bannerman was married to the actor, Pat Somerset.

The image of Margaret Bannerman was scanned from an original postcard in the Northernstars Collection.