Diskussion:Ralph Richardson

Erste Ehefrau

Seine erste Ehefrau Muriel “Kit” Hewitt war eine Schauspielerin, erkrankt in jungen Jahren schwer und starb mit 35.

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Ralph Richardson and his first wife, Muriel “Kit” Hewitt in the play “Devonshire Cream,” and Kit as Ophelia in “Hamlet” in 1925. These are the only pictures I’ve seen of Kit. Have the other Ralph fans seen more? I received a private “ask” about Kit so here goes. Ralph and Kit met in the Charles Doran acting company and fell in love. They married in 1924—he was 22 years old and she was 17. They worked with the Birmingham Rep where she received better notices than Ralph! He was very proud of her success and said her career was brilliant but brief. In 1927, Kit contracted encephalitis lethargica—this is the “sleeping sickness” depicted in the movie “Awakenings.” There was no treatment and Kit gradually fell into a dreamlike state—conscious, aware but often speechless and not fully awake. Ralph cared for Kit in a series of hospitals and nursing homes, while he kept working to pay for her care and building his great career. When the war started, he moved her to a house in the country and hired a couple to take care of her. Ralph was rushing to visit her while on leave from the Fleet Air Arm in 1942 when he lost control of his motorbike and was seriously injured. She was very ill by then but insisted on visiting him during his long stay in hospital.

Kit died in October 1942. In his later years, Ralph could not bear to speak of her, simply saying that she was a fine actress who sadly died and she was “most assuredly in heaven.” When Garry O’Connor interviewed Ralph for his book in 1981 and tried to ask about her, Ralph reacted with great pain, “as if the unhappiness had never left him,” and talked about “how he was always worrying and trying to take care of her,” and how her courage was terribly tested. Kit’s death “reverberates through the rest of his life and is with him in old age.” O’Connor wrote that the personal trials of those years “may explain the quality of compassion which came to permeate his acting.” Just can’t end this on such a sad note, so here’s the best story about young Ralph and Kit. While working at Birmingham Rep, they met a 19-year-old actor named Laurence Olivier. Larry was so smitten by Kit that he flirted with her in front of her husband, much to Ralph’s great annoyance and likely leading to the first frenemy moment between them. Larry was one of the few people who knew Kit, and knew what they endured. (John Gielgud never met her.) I wonder whether their mutual affection for young Kit was part of the deep bond between Ralph and Larry that endured through their lives.

https://ralphsmotorbike.tumblr.com/post/83989292538/ralph-richardson-and-his-first-wife-muriel-kit (nicht signierter Beitrag von 91.59.174.57 (Diskussion) 08:22, 7. Aug. 2020 (CEST))