A film star remembered for one role – as Sister Ruth in ‘Black Narcissus’ – that’s a bit unfair really because she was in lots of others and active on the stage and Television over a long career in acting.

These pictures are from a 1949 magazine and shows her in her Knightsbridge flat and were taken just before she made the film ‘ The Small Back Room’

She is here in her three b edroom apartment in Knightsbridge – and the caption even says the she ‘does her own housework’

She also designed the attractive furnishings herself

ABOVE – A service lift connects to the kitchen below to her dining room above.

She is a music lover and has a collection of French Cabaret songs

In 1943 she had married USAF pilot Daniel Bowen, and gone to live in the USA but there her film work never made any headway, so she came back to England. She was divorced from Daniel Bowen in 1950 so maybe when these pictures were taken the marriage was effectively over and she was living alone in London.

She must have returned in 1945 because she was in ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ and then ‘Black Narcissus’ – both made here at Denham Film Studios

However it is the role of Sister Ruth that cements her well and truly in the British Film Hall of Fame for this wonderful portrayal which leaves the cinema audience at first frightened and then disturbed.