Actress Joan Marion, born Joan Marion Nicholls in Tasmania, spent very little of her life in Australia before forging an international career on the stage and screen.
But according to her granddaughter Michele Lumley, who was born in England but now lives in Texas, Marion’s heart was always in Launceston.
Marion was born in 1908 and moved to London with her family as young child, where she later attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
In her youth, Joan Marion attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the UK. (Supplied: Michele Lumley)
In 1928, she made her silver screen debut in an uncredited role in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Champagne.
She went on to appear in two West End stage shows simultaneously — a feat achieved by leaving one theatre after the death of her character and travelling about 500 metres to perform a different role on a new stage.
Marion never returned to Tasmania, Ms Lumley said.
But she maintained a connection to the state through letters sent to The Launceston Hotel, once owned by her grandparents.
Born on Bass Strait
Marion’s birth certificate lists her place of birth as Launceston, but Ms Lumley said her grandmother was born on a boat bound for Tasmania in the Bass Strait.
Her parents Harry and Marian Nicholls were travelling from Malaya, now the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore, where they had lived for a couple of years before briefly returning home to Australia.
Joan Marion early in her career. (Supplied: Michele Lumley)
Ms Nicholls was the daughter of hotel owners John and Annie Huston, who took ownership of The Launceston Hotel in 1886.
When Marion was less than five years old, her parents moved the family to Dulwich in England, where she was raised alongside siblings Howard, Frank and Peter.
After school and against her parents’ wishes, Marion applied to attend RADA and was accepted into the drama school.
“Her parents were totally shocked,” Ms Lumley said.
“They thought that she was going to go and work in her father’s [engineering consultancy] company and be a secretary … and she just had a very different idea.”
Marion’s first silver screen role in Champagne, although uncredited, reinforced her ambition.
“She loved it, that was it for her … but her real, real passion was theatre,” Ms Lumley said.
A double act
In 1934, Marion was celebrated by the Australian and British press for performing in two West End plays at once.
In Men in White, an American play set in a hospital, she played the prominent role of a young nurse who dies on an operating table.
After her character’s death, Marion would rush backstage to quickly change from her hospital gown.
Joan Marion on the set of 1937 film For Valour. (Supplied: Michele Lumley)
She would then take a short taxi trip to a nearby theatre and change into a sharp travel suit, to appear in The Maitlands as a “hard, sophisticated wife”, a newspaper reported.
Marion appeared in a number of British films in the 1930s, but her career on the stage eclipsed her screen roles.
She also travelled to New York to appear in plays, but began to step away from acting in the 1940s.
World War II and a growing family after marriage signified the tapering and eventual end of her career.
“I don’t think my grandfather really wanted her to act anymore,” Ms Lumley said.
“It wasn’t the right time for her to be in theatre.”
Marion took on small roles in the years following the war but largely disappeared from the stage and screen.
One of her final acting roles was in an episode of a UK television series, the Somerset Maugham Hour, in 1960.
Joan Marion on stage alongside Ralph Richardson in The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse. (Supplied: Michele Lumley)
Return to Australia
Marion returned to Australia in 1982 to see Ms Lumley, who had undertaken after a seven-month sailing adventure from Massachusetts in the United States to Sydney.
The two had a close relationship, as Marion had raised her granddaughter to help her daughter, Eugenie, who was a young single mother.
Joan Marion and Michele Lumley embrace on the docks in Sydney in 1982. (Supplied: Michele Lumley)
Ms Lumley said the sight of her 74-year-old grandmother standing alone on the docks was unforgettable.
“We arrived at 7 [o’clock] in the morning, and she was standing there on the deck,” Ms Lumley said.
“It was an amazing sight to see this woman, still in high heels.”
The two discussed a return to Tasmania, but the additional travel was too taxing for the ageing Marion.
Marion loved Tasmania from afar instead, her granddaughter said, maintaining contact with managers of The Launceston Hotel until at least the late 1970s.
Ms Lumley said her grandmother would write letters to ask questions about the hotel and receive “little bits of newspaper articles about it” and “information”.
“Her heart was always in Launceston,” Ms Lumley said.
Joan Marion at 91 years old. (Supplied: Michele Lumley)
Fame in Hollywood’s Golden Age
Marion’s star rose during the Golden Age of Hollywood, in the early to mid-20th century.
She did receive an offer to go to Hollywood, but declined.
Ms Lumley said a meeting between Marion and Hollywood heavyweight Jack Warner, of Warner Bros. Studios, put her off.
Already an established star of the stage, Marion was given a “wisp of an outfit” to wear for her meeting with Warner, Ms Lumley said.
“She was in this little outfit … [and] had to bounce a ball and jump up and down … while he watched,” Ms Lumley said.
“She said, ‘If this is the kind of thing I’m going to have to do to be a star in Hollywood, then it’s not something I want to do.'”
Cultural critic Mel Campbell said Marion’s shunning of Hollywood after being objectified by the studio boss could be interpreted as the star missing out on cinematic fame.
But she said it also spoke to Marion’s social standing and success in the West End and Broadway.
“I get the impression that she didn’t want to be pushing and grinding for a career and sensed that in Hollywood, she might have to do that,” Ms Campbell said.
“To her, it might have been more dignified and prestigious to have people approach her for work, or to reach out to people because she wanted to work with them.”
Joan Marion on set of UK film Spies of the Air with actor Barry K Barnes. (Supplied: Michele Lumley)
Fireworks a ‘fitting’ farewell
Marion died on Guy Fawkes Night at the age of 93, in the market town of Holt in Norfolk, England.
Her ashes were scattered at nearby Sheringham.
Ms Lumley was not present when her grandmother died, but her mother, Eugenie, reflected on the moment with her.
“My mother said it was the strangest thing — that something so sad had happened and there were fireworks going off,” Ms Lumley said.
“For me, it just seemed a celebration of life.
“It was a fitting end to an ear of a wonderful woman who never missed a beat and always lived by her own rules.”