This Is Your Life: Dora Bryan 1

Dora BRYAN (1923-2014)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Dora Bryan, actress, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the dining room of her home on Marine Parade in Brighton, having been led to believe she was being filmed for advance publicity for her return to the West End theatre.

Dora, who was born in Oldham, made her stage debut as a child in pantomime in Manchester and joined the Oldham Repertory Company as Assistant Stage Manager aged 15. After a tour of the UK and Italy with ENSA during the Second World War, she moved to London, where she found regular stage work before landing her first West End starring role in 1955 in the musical comedy The Water Gipsies.

Having played supporting roles in films such as The Blue Lamp and The Fallen Idol, her big break came with The Cure For Love in 1949 and by the early 1960s, she had established herself as a leading dramatic actress, notably in the film A Taste of Honey - in a role which won her the BAFTA award for Best Actress.

Dora Bryan was a subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions - surprised again by Michael Aspel in January 1989 at the Opera House in Manchester.

"This evening? Oh dear! I've got to do some auditions at four!"

programme details...

Edition No: 190
Subject No: 191
Broadcast live: Mon 2 Apr 1962
Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
Venue: BBC Television Theatre
Series: 7
Edition: 27

on the guest list...

Blanche Goodwin
Doris Renshaw
Agnes Jefferson
Bobby Henrey
Gladys Henson
Joan Heal
William Magee
Bill Lawton - husband
Daniel - son
John Broadbent - brother
Emlyn Williams

production team...

Researcher: Nickola Sterne
Writer: Nickola Sterne
Director: Yvonne Littlewood
Producer: T Leslie Jackson

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

with thanks to Marcus Bagshaw of the Grange Art Gallery and Museum, Rottingdean, for his contribution to this page

related pages...

Dora Bryan

second tribute

An Actor's Life For Me

spotlight on the stars

Life Second Time Around

surprised again!

The Night of 1000 Lives

a celebration of a thousand editions

The Big Red Book

the programme's icon

Interviews

Daniel Lawton, son of Dora Bryan, recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in an exclusive interview recorded in October 2013

Dora Bryan This Is Your Life Big Red Book

Photographs and screenshots of Dora Bryan This Is Your Life - and a photograph of Dora Bryan's big red book

Dora Bryan recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, According to Dora...

A few weeks later somebody telephoned to ask if I would have some family background photographs taken for publicity for the new musical. I agreed, and was told the photographers would come the following morning. I was upstairs in the nursery next morning when Bill came in and said the photographers had arrived. I walked downstairs into the large dining-room-cum-playroom, carrying William. I thought there was rather a lot of equipment just for a few photographs, but I sat down on the sofa, facing what looked suspiciously like a television camera. Then a familiar voice said from behind me, 'Hello, Dora,' and the owner of the familiar voice walked in. It was Eamonn Andrews. 'Hello, Eamonn,' I said shakily. 'What are you doing here?' It didn't take long to explain, and his next words were, 'Dora Bryan – This is your life!'

The cameras began to roll as they filmed the introduction to what would take place in the evening at the studios. I was so taken aback that I said exactly what I felt – 'Oh, how marvellous!' And so it was, but this was not what the doctor ordered. A nursing mother needs peace and quiet. It was the start of a long exciting day for me, and marked the occasion of William's introduction to the bottle.

I rushed around and found myself something to wear, and in the afternoon kissed the children goodbye, told the nanny they could sit up and watch the programme, and caught a train to London, and the BBC television studios. Sometimes This Is Your Life can be rather sad, or even occasionally embarrassing, and for some of the 'subjects' it is clearly something of an ordeal. This one was great fun, and just like a party. I enjoyed every minute of it.

One after another, in came so many of my favourite people. There was dear Auntie Jeff, my landlady when I had been at Colchester Rep; Joan Heal, with whom I'd always had such fun in revues; lovely Gladys Henson, who played the role of my mother in the film The Cure for Love, and young Robert Henrey, whom I had last seen as a small boy when we made the film The Fallen Idol, and who now was a handsome young man about town. They even brought on stage the ticket collector from the train, who on the night before my wedding had made me take my dog along to the luggage van, because he wasn't allowed in my sleeper. How on earth did they find him, I wondered. I was hoping the BBC would have filmed a message from my brother John in South Africa. It never occurred to me that they would have gone to all the trouble and expense of flying him from Cape Town, and I must admit that when he walked on to the stage with his wife Marguerite, I cried a little from sheer happiness.

The producer had pulled a fast one by having Daniel rushed up to London by car with the nanny, and when he was brought on stage I was so surprised that I turned to my poor husband in front of the cameras and said, 'What on earth is Daniel doing out at this time of night?' That raised the biggest laugh of the evening.

After a lovely party, my brother John and his wife came back home with us and stayed on for a while.

Robert Henrey, the former child actor who had worked with Dora Bryan on the film The Fallen Idol, recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in his autobiography, Through Grown Up Eyes, reproduced here with kind permission of the author...

By this stage in my life I had good reason to believe I had shaken off The Fallen Idol for good. I had at last achieved a state of happy anonymity. Not so fast! I have no idea how the BBC learned of my whereabouts, but I was at work one morning checking a client's ledger in a warehouse next to Waterloo Station. 'You're wanted on the phone', I was told. The caller asked me point blank whether I remembered Dora Bryan. I could have hung up, but I didn't. I had fond memories of Dora. She had played the brief but engaging role of the young prostitute who had been asked by the police to wheedle information out of the frightened little boy. It was a key scene: the child was marooned in the police station after his night time escape from what he imagined to be the scene of a heinous murder.

Had I ever watched a TV show called This Is Your Life? That was a tougher question to which the answer was hardly, if ever, but I did know it involved putting a famous person on stage and then inviting in, one by one, people that famous person had come across in the past. The idea was to surprise the famous person and then for everyone concerned to say clever and funny things. The show had been pioneered in America in the 1950s and then adapted for UK audiences where it met with enduring success.

Unhesitatingly, I accepted. I liked the idea that Dora was to be the famous person. She had made a name for herself as Rita Tushingham's mother in the deservedly successful 1961 film A Taste of Honey. That was something Dora excelled at: a larger-than-life supporting role that added zest to the entire production. Besides, I was in need of stimulation: accounting, especially in its early stages, involves episodes of unremitting boredom.

The clincher was that I was offered a £30 fee: hardly a fortune, but in relation to my annual salary of £500 not something to be passed up. I can't say I remember much about the actual show except that Dora was as gushing and welcoming as ever. She did, though, remember me as the little boy she had bounced on her knees on the police station set at Shepperton Studios.

Unknown source article: Dora Bryan This Is Your Life

unknown source and date

TV MILLIONS SHARE LAUGHS AND TEARS

Britain's favourite mum - our Dora

DORA BRYAN, Oldham's star of stage, screen and radio, was the personality featured in BBC television's This Is Your Life on Monday night.

Compere Eamonn Andrews took viewers through Dora's life her struggles, troubles... and her rise to fame.

Dora at her Brighton home - "Britain's favourite mother" said Eamonn - with her three children, Daniel, Georgina and eight-week-old William John.

Irish type

Dora LAUGHED as former Oldham Rep secretary Doris Renshaw told the story of an indignant theatregoer who didn't like Dora having to use bad language on stage as leading lady at the theatre.

She SMILED as a former Colchester landlady, Mrs. Jefferson, reminded her of how she took her in because she thought Dora was Irish.

In fact she was at the time playing the lead in "Peg o' My Heart," in 1944.

She GIGGLED as actress Gladys Henson told viewers how Dora always used to fall asleep on the train they took from Hounslow to work every morning.

She JOKED as another actress, Joan Heal, talked about the dog who could do no wrong in Dora's eyes. "Until he bit me," she said.

She BEAMED as Eamonn Andrews introduced Dora's husband, ex-Lancashire League cricketer Bill Lawton, and her son, Daniel.

"We were courting for 12 years," said Dora. "Isn't it awful?"

Then, as the last guest, Dora's brother, John Broadbent - he had flown 6,000 miles from his Cape Town home - walked on stage, Dora WEPT.

Oscar makes this her finest year

DORA BRYAN reached the pinnacle of her acting career on Thursday night when she was awarded an Oscar as the best British film actress of the year.

And as she received the award, the Oldham star of stage screen and radio broke down and cried - the second time in a week.

She cried on Monday in BBC's This Is Your Life programme. But the tears then, as last night, were tears of joy, for this has been Dora's finest year.

After 26 years

The former Oldham Rep actress reached the top with her brilliant performance in Shelagh Delaney's 'A Taste of Honey' - the film which is showing at the Empire, Oldham next week.

Liverpool-born Rita Tushingham, the girl who played her teenage daughter in the film gets the award as the most promising newcomer to films.

Dora's award comes after 26 years in show business during which time she worked her way through repertory to the London stage, radio, TV and film stardom.

Eight weeks ago Dora, wife of cricketer Bill Lawton, realised another of her life's ambitions when her son, William, was born.

A selection of newspaper articles - all unknown sources and dates - taken from Dora Bryan's scrapbook:

Great Week for Dora Bryan

IT has been quite a week for one of Brighton's most popular residents, Dora Bryan, the stage and screen star. On Monday evening BBC TV viewers saw her in the programme This Is Your Life, and on Thursday at the Dorchester Hotel, she received an Oscar as the best British actress of the year for her part in A Taste of Honey.

In the TV programme there were shots of Brighton's Palace Pier and the Sea Front, home of so many stage and film stars.

Dora, with her delightful children playing around her, and nursing her very new baby William, fondly believed she was being filmed for her return to work on the West End version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. When Eamonn Andrews entered and crouched beside her she looked around and thought she was looking at him on television; she could not believe he was in her home. "Very odd feeling," said Dora afterwards.

A Wonderful Surprise

"I did not know what to do when Eamonn said: 'This is your life.' I thought I must get my hair done or buy a new dress."

As always, This Is Your Life unfolded the Dora Broadbent (as she was) story, tracing through the highlights from the time she played in the Drury Lane Babes, then as a 15-year-old assistant stage manager in a repertory company, up to her great success in the West End and in films.

As usual, the producers had a wonderful surprise for Dora which reduced her almost to tears – they flew her brother home 6,000 miles for a happy reunion. Then there was her most faithful stage-door fan who waited 12 years to marry her – her husband, Bill Lawton, the Lancashire cricketer.

Contrast in these two lives

TWO programmes on BBC-TV did "this is your life" pieces: the official one with Eamonn Andrews in charge of that of Dora Bryan (Broadbent as was) and the other, presided over by Richard Dimbleby and John Morgan, that of Selwyn Lloyd, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

But what a difference in the lives. The natural charm that has put Dora at the top of her profession was very much in evidence, and her almost childlike delight in everything going on was utterly infectious.

On the other hand, the picture of the Chancellor was rather an imposing one. Here was a man apparently suddenly burgeoning from local to national politics, a man of capability but no outstanding qualities, a man who had had a very bad Press. This must be the first time that a Chancellor has been so "taken apart" a few days before he presented his Budget. However, it did give us an idea what to expect from him.

Sympathy

DORA BRYAN'S was the most heart-warming THIS IS YOUR LIFE I've seen for many a Monday.

Years in the theatre have not blunted her sympathy and sentiment.

She reacted to the surprises of the programme with artless friendliness and transparent emotions.

What a nice person she is!

PERSONALITY PLUS

DORA BRYAN is a charming person. Anyone who can retain – as she did – such spontaneity and lack of affectedness throughout the half-hour-long harangue of This Is Your Life must indeed, one feels, have those qualities well and truly "under the skin". There was no doubt – as unfortunately there so often seems to have been in past editions of the series – that the group who met together to tell her "Life" were, without exception, both proud and charmed to have known her. Long before the programme ended, we could see why. From this episode, it becomes clear that what is wrong with This Is Your Life is not Eamonn, or the script-writers, or the old, changeless routine, but just the fact that not all of the subjects – not nearly all – are as straightforward, charming and truly self-effacing as Dora Bryan.

I've said before that stars of the entertainment world don't make the best This Is Your Life subjects. But as far as Dora Bryan's concerned, I take pleasure in eating my words. Her obvious sincerity won over every viewer.

Series 7 subjects