Margaret Lockwood: English screen star of the 1930s–1940s

Early life and training

Lockwood was born in Karachi, then part of British India, and was raised in London. She studied acting and began on the stage before moving into film in the 1930s. Early screen parts established her as a promising young performer and led to more substantial roles through the decade.

Film career and signature roles

Her breakthrough came with a string of popular pictures in the 1930s and 1940s. She played Annie Ridd in a 1935 adaptation of Lorna Doone and portrayed Iris Henderson in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 thriller The Lady Vanishes. The role that made her an icon was in The Wicked Lady (a mid-1940s Gainsborough melodrama), in which she played a charismatic and treacherous heroine that challenged contemporary expectations of female stars.

• Notable films: Lorna Doone (1935), The Lady Vanishes (1938), The Wicked Lady (1940s)
• Range: period dramas, thrillers, and romantic melodramas

Stage, television and later work

After her peak on film, Lockwood returned periodically to the theatre and accepted roles on television as the medium expanded. She appeared in a variety of televised dramas and series, maintaining a public profile into later decades while shifting away from the constant schedule of feature production.

Style, legacy and personal notes

Lockwood is remembered for a screen presence that combined elegance with emotional directness. Her portrayal of ambiguous or "wicked" women influenced how British studios marketed female stars in the 1940s. In later life she suffered health problems and died from complications of cirrhosis in 1990 at the age of 73. Her work continues to be cited in studies of British cinema and in retrospectives that trace the development of female stardom.

For further reading on her films, television appearances and contemporary reception, see filmographies and archives that catalog British cinema and television history (movies, television).