Marjorie Westbury

Marjorie Westbury (18 June 1905 - 16 December 1989) was an English radio actress and singer. Her career lasted over fifty years.

Born in Oldbury, Worcestershire, she studied Voice at the Royal College of Music in London between 1927 and 1930. During the 1930s she made many radio broadcasts as a soprano from the BBC studios at Birmingham. By the late 1930s she had moved into acting as well as singing. This led in 1942 to a small part in Francis Durbridge's Paul Temple Intervenes.

In 1945 she took on the role of Paul's wife, Steve Temple, and continued to play the part until the serials came to an end in 1968. The broadcast of many of the surviving Paul Temple serials on BBC7 has introduced a younger audience to her work, and led to a revival of interest in her.

While "Steve Temple" might have been her longest-lasting creation, she was a very frequent radio actress into the 1970s and beyond. During the 1950s she created the part of the (fictional) Austrian soprano Elsa Strauss in the Hilda Tablet series of radio plays by Henry Reed.

Her career was mostly limted to radio as her small, dumpy, physique was much in contrast with her bright and lively youthful-sounding voice.

In 1983 she chose to celebrate the golden jubilee of her first appearance on radio by appearing as "Helen Lancaster" in N.C. Hunter's play, Waters of the Moon.

She died at her farmhouse in Maresfield, near Uckfield, Sussex on 16 December 1989, aged 84.

Radio Plays

• Day of the Triffids 1968
• Brass Farthing 1951
• A Very Great Man Indeed 1953 & 1961
• The Private Life of Hilda Tablet 1954
• Emily Butter (14 November 1954)
• Vincenzo by Henry Reed 1955
• A Hedge, Backwards (29 February 1956)
• The Primal Scene, As It Were (11 March 1958)
• Not a Drum Was Heard (6 May 1959)
• Musique Discrète (27 October 1959)

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Westbury