Valerie Hobson

Acting

Valerie Hobson

Born 1917-04-14 · Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland

Valerie Hobson (14 April 1917 – 13 November 1998) was a British actress who appeared in a number of British films during the 1940s and 1950s. She was born Babette Valerie Louise Hobson in Larne, County Antrim, Ireland. She appeared as Baroness Frankenstein in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) with Boris Karloff and Colin Clive, taking over the role from Mae Clarke, who had played it in the original Frankenstein (1931). Hobson also played opposite Henry Hull that same year in Werewolf of London, the first Hollywood werewolf movie, predating The Wolf Man by six years. The latter half of the 1940s saw Hobson in perhaps her two most memorable roles: as the adult Estella in David Lean's 1946 adaptation of Great Expectations, and as the refined and virtuous Edith D'Ascoyne in the 1949 black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. In 1952 she divorced her first husband, film producer Sir Anthony Havelock-Allan (1904–2003), and married MP John Profumo (1915–2006) in 1954, giving up acting shortly afterwards Valerie Hobson's last starring role was in the original London production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical play The King and I which opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on October 8, 1953. She played Mrs. Anna Leonowens opposite Herbert Lom's King. After Profumo's ministerial career ended in disgrace in 1963, following revelations he had lied to the House of Commons about his affair with Christine Keeler, she stood by him, and they worked together for charity for the remainder of her life. Hobson's eldest son, Simon Anthony Clerveaux Havelock-Allan was born in May 1944 with Down's Syndrome. Her middle child, Mark Havelock-Allan, was born on 4 April 1951. Her youngest child is author David Profumo, (b. 16 October 1955) wrote Bringing the House Down (2006) about the scandal. She died of a heart attack in London in 1998 and is buried in Surrey, England. Description above from the Wikipedia Valerie Hobson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Bride of Frankenstein poster
7.5

Dr. Frankenstein and his monster both turn out to be alive after being attacked by an angry mob. The now-chastened scientist attempts to escape his past, but a former mentor forces him to assist with the creation of a new creature.

Bride of Frankenstein

1935

Great Expectations poster
7.3

In this Dickens adaptation, orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.

Great Expectations

1946

Kind Hearts and Coronets poster
7.6

When his mother eloped with an Italian opera singer, Louis Mazzini was cut off from her aristocratic family. After the family refuses to let her be buried in the family mausoleum, Louis avenges his mother's death by attempting to murder every family member who stands between himself and the family fortune. But when he finds himself torn between his longtime love and the widow of one of his victims, his plans go awry.

Kind Hearts and Coronets

1949

The Card poster
7.0

A charming and ambitious young man finds many ways to raise himself through the ranks in business and social standing - some honest, some not quite so. If he can just manage to avoid a certain very predatory woman.

The Card

1952

Werewolf of London poster
6.1

A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.

Werewolf of London

1935

The Drum poster
6.1

Set in the India of the British Raj, the evil and untrustworthy Prince Guhl (Raymond Massey) plans to wipe out the British troops as they enjoy the hospitality of Guhl's spacious palace. It's up to the loyal young Prince Azim (Sabu) to warn the troops of Guhl's treachery by tapping out a message on his drum.

The Drum

1938

The Mystery of Edwin Drood poster
5.9

A choirmaster addicted to opium and obsessed with a beautiful young woman will stop at nothing to possess her.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

1935

Contraband poster
7.1

During early World War II, a Danish sea captain, delayed in a British port, tangles with German spies.

Contraband

1940

Tugboat Princess poster
8.0

When her parents are drowned at sea, "Princess" Judy is adopted by a soft-hearted old sea captain, Captain Zack, and brought to live on his tugboat.

Tugboat Princess

1936

The Interrupted Journey poster
5.8

When John North, a budding author, pulls the communication cord of a late night train that is taking him away on a weekend with his publishers wife, he sets in motion a series of events that lead to a train crash, a murder and a police man hunt, but all is not what it seems.

The Interrupted Journey

1949

Q Planes poster
6.0

In England, an eccentric police inspector, an earnest test pilot and a spunky female reporter team up to solve the mystery of a series of test aircraft which have disappeared without a trace while over the ocean on their maiden flights; unaware, as they are, that a spy ring has been shooting the planes down with a ray machine hidden aboard a salvage vessel which is on hand to haul the downed aircraft aboard, crews and all.

Q Planes

1939

No artwork available
NR

Publicity film for manufacturers and retailers of television equipment. A survey of the programmes transmitted by the British Broadcasting Corporation during the first six months of operation, November 1936 - May 1937, intended for manufacturers and retailers to show sample types of programmes transmitted.

Television Demonstration Film

1937

The Spy in Black poster
6.4

A German submarine is sent to the Orkney Isles in 1917 to sink the British fleet.

The Spy in Black

1939

Blanche Fury poster
6.2

Penniless Blanche Fuller takes a job as a governess at the estate of her rich relations, the Fury family. To better her position in life, Blanche marries her dull cousin, Laurence Fury, who has a daughter she's fond of. But Blanche begins a tempestuous romance with steward Philip Thorn. Together, they hatch a murderous plan to gain control of the estate.

Blanche Fury

1948

Train of Events poster
6.3

A train disaster is told in four short stories to give character studies of the people involved, how it will affect them and how they deal with it.

Train of Events

1949

The Small Voice poster
6.4

A man and his wife take to their house some men they rescue from a road crash and then find they have picked up some dangerous criminals.

The Small Voice

1948

Jump for Glory poster
5.7

A London cat burglar falls for the girlfriend of a stockbroker who used to be his partner.

Jump for Glory

1937

The Voice of Merrill poster
6.3

A convicted female blackmailer is found murdered in her flat and suspicion falls on three men, all of whom the police believe may have had reason to wish her dead

The Voice of Merrill

1952

The Adventures of Tartu poster
6.2

British Captain Terence Stevenson accepts an assignment even more dangerous than his everyday job of defusing undetonated bombs. Fluent in Romanian and German and having studied chemical engineering, he's parachuted into Romania to assume the identity of Captain Jan Tartu, a member of the fascist Iron Guard. Tartu makes his way to Czechoslovakia to steal the formula of a new Nazi poison gas and sabotage the factory of its manufacturing.

The Adventures of Tartu

1943

Atlantic Ferry poster
6.6

The MacIver brothers (Michael Redgrave, Griffith Jones) build the first ship to cross the Atlantic by steam power alone.

Atlantic Ferry

1941

The Great Impersonation poster
7.5

The second of the three film versions of the E. Phillips Oppenheim espionage thriller set largely in an old dark house where a tremulous wife wonders if her husband is really his double, a dastardly German spy.

The Great Impersonation

1935

Life Returns poster
5.1

A doctor who has spent his career working on ways to revive the dead sees his chance to prove his theory by performing his procedures on a recently deceased dog.

Life Returns

1935

Strange Wives poster
7.0

When a young man marries a Russian girl, he finds that he has "married" her entire family.

Strange Wives

1934

Chinatown Squad poster
7.5

Police search for the killer of a man who misused $700,000 intended for the Chinese Communists.

Chinatown Squad

1935