Katie Johnson (English actress)

Katie Johnson (English actress)
Bessie Kate Johnson (18 November 1878 – 4 May 1957) was an English actress who appeared on stage from 1894 and on screen from the 1930s to the 1950s.<ref name=BFISCREENONLINE>http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/557746/index.html</>Johnson on the British Film Institute website</ref>
Biography
In 1908 she married the actor Frank Goodenough Bayly (1873 – 28 November 1923, Newcastle upon Tyne). The couple had two children, William Frank Goodenough Bayly (1910-1973) and Johnson Goodenough Bayly (1915-1980).
She first appeared in a film at age 53, in 1932, but never received critical acclaim for her performances until 1955, when she starred, aged 76, in the Ealing Studios comedy The Ladykillers as Mrs Louisa Wilberforce. The role earned her a British Film Academy award for best British actress. She died less than two years afterwards having only appeared in a single further film.
She also appeared in the BBC science fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment (1953) and played a spy in I See a Dark Stranger (1946).
Selected filmography
After Office Hours (1932) – Miss Wilesden
A Glimpse of Paradise (1934) – Mrs. Fielding
Laburnum Grove (1936) – Mrs. Radfern
Dusty Ermine (1936) – Emily Kent
Farewell Again (1937) – Mother of soldier in hospital (uncredited)
The Last Adventurers (1937) – (uncredited)
Sunset in Vienna (1937) – Woman in Café (uncredited)
The Dark Stairway (1938) – (uncredited)
Marigold (1938) – Santa Dunlop
Gaslight (1940) – Alice Barlow's Maid (uncredited)
Two for Danger (1940) – (uncredited)
Freedom Radio (1941) – Granny Schmidt
Jeannie (1941) – Mathilda
The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942) – Train Passenger (uncredited)
Talk About Jacqueline (1942) – Ethel
Tawny Pipit (1944) – Miss Pyman
He Snoops to Conquer (1944) – Ma – George's Landlady (uncredited)
Love Letters (1945) – Nurse (uncredited)
The Years Between (1946) – Old Man's Wife
I See a Dark Stranger (1946) – Old Lady on Train
Meet Me at Dawn (1947) – Henriette – Mme. Vermomel's Housekeeper
Code of Scotland Yard (1947) – Music Box Seller. (uncredited)
Death of an Angel (1952) – Sarah Oddy
I Believe in You (1952) – Miss Mackiln
Lady in the Fog (1952) – 'Mary Stuart' – Old Inmate at Murder Scene
The Large Rope (1953) – Grandmother
Three Steps in the Dark (1953) – Mrs. Riddle
The Rainbow Jacket (1954) – (uncredited)
The Delavine Affair (1954) – Mrs. Bissett
Out of the Clouds (1955) – Passenger (uncredited)
John and Julie (1955) – Old Lady
The Ladykillers (1955) – Mrs. Wilberforce (The Old Lady)
How to Murder a Rich Uncle (1957) – Alice (final film role) – (released posthumously, in June 1957)
Additional sources
Film academy awards, The Times, 13 February 1956, pg. 5
Obituary, The Times, 9 May 1957, pg. 12
Will, The Times, 29 July 1957, pg. 10
References
External links
Performances listed in Theatre Archive University of Bristol
1878 births
1957 deaths
19th-century English actresses
20th-century English actresses
Actresses from Kent
Actresses from Sussex
Best British Actress BAFTA Award winners
English film actresses
English stage actresses
English television actresses
People from Clayton, West Sussex
People from Elham, Kent