Pamela Margaret Stanley was a British actress who appeared in a number of stage and film roles in Britain and the United States; however, the role which she became most identified with was that of Queen Victoria.
Career
Pamela Stanley was born in Nether Alderley, Cheshire. She was the daughter of Sir Arthur Lyulph Stanley, the fifth Baron Stanley of Alderley and his wife Margaret Evans-Gordon, the daughter of Henry Evans-Gordon. She spent her early childhood in Australia, where her father was Governor of Victoria between 1914 - 1919. She was educated in France and Switzerland, later studying at the Webber Douglas School of Acting and Singing. Her mother was a noted amateur actress, descended from the Kemble family of actors. She made her stage début in Derby Day in 1932 at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. This was followed by six months at the Oxford Repertory Company in which she appeared as Mrs. Marwood in The Way of the World. She appeared with Martin Harvey in Leopold David Lewis' The Bells at the Savoy Theatre, and also as Wendy in Peter Pan in 1934. In the same year she acted in two productions by Sir Robert Atkins at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, where she played Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream with Phyllis Neilson-Terry, Leslie French, and Greer Garson as an uncredited extra; in The Tempest she was Miranda to John Drinkwater's Prospero, with Leslie French as Ariel and Atkins as Caliban. Pamela Stanley appeared as Queen Victoria in Victoria Regina by Laurence Housman at the Gate Theatre in 1935, and in 1936 she played Ophelia in Hamlet on Broadway with Leslie Howard. However, John Gielgud had just ended a very successful Broadway run of the same play; the critics were not impressed and the show closed after 39 performances. She was cast as Queen Victoria in the 1936 filmDavid Livingstone before returning to the Lyric for another season in Victoria Regina. The noted theatre criticJames Agate compared Stanley's performance with a New York production starring Helen Hayes; unfortunately he found Hayes' portrayal of Queen Victoria like "a blazing sun, and I am so blinded by the dazzling performance of Helen Hayes that I literally cannot see Pamela Stanley." Nevertheless, he found the audience very appreciative: "All around me on the first night the air hummed with pretty comments, and blasts of Isn't she sweet? blew down my neck." But he thought that Stanley had "moments of real emotion which, being genuinely her own, genuinely move her audience." Contemporary photographs show that her resemblance to the queen was remarkable. She appeared yet again as Victoria in the 1938 filmMarigold.
Family life
Pamela Stanley married Sir David Cunynghame in 1941, becoming Lady Cunynghame. They had three sons, Andrew, John and Arthur; Andrew succeeded his father as the twelfth baronet in 1978. David Cunynghame was a film production manager, and amongst other films he worked on: Things to Come with Ralph Richardson; three films starring Robert Donat ; and two films by Michael Powell, The Lion Has Wings and The Thief of Bagdad.
Later career
Pamela made a brief return to the stage in 1968 when she appeared for the last time as Queen Victoria in The Queen’s Highland Servant by William Douglas-Home at the Savoy Theatre in London. According to the author's memoirs, this was his favourite play. She made a final appearance in a small, uncredited part in The Last Hand Grenade as the Governor's Wife. The film, directed by Gordon Flemyng starred Stanley Baker, Honor Blackman and Richard Attenborough. Pamela survived her husband and died on 30 June 1991 aged eighty-one.
