- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMuguette Mary Jenkins
- Nickname
- Megs. Jenkins
- Height5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
- An
engineer's daughter, she had first planned on becoming a ballerina,
using her original Christian name Muguette, but abandoned those plans
by the age of 17 when she realized that her physique was more in
keeping with her other first name, Megs. She trained in Liverpool at
the School of Dancing and Dramatic Art and then joined the Liverpool
Repertory Company in 1933 before moving to London to appear at the
Player's Theatre four years later.
During the
1950's, Megs was busy acting on stage and had considerable critical success in two plays by Emlyn Williams,
'Light of Heart' (1940) and 'The Wind of Heaven' (1945). Against character, she also played the vicious, unstable Alma Winemiller in 'Summer and Smoke' (1951) by Tennessee Williams.
In 1956, she was awarded the Clarence Derwent Award as Best Supporting
Actress for her role as the stoic wife of a longshoreman harbouring
incestuous feelings for his niece in
'A View from the Bridge' by Arthur Miller.
The previous year, she had made her Broadway debut in Chekhov's 'A Day
by the Sea' as a supportive governess to an alcoholic physician.
Among her screen roles, best remembered are those of Nurse Woods in the
excellent murder mystery
Green for Danger (1946); her
plump, homely innkeeper providing final happiness to the title
character at the end of
The History of Mr. Polly (1949));
and three of her many housekeepers : the proper one of
Indiscreet (1958), the nervously
anxious one, sensing danger in
The Innocents (1961) and the warm,
dependable one in the musical
Oliver! (1968). From the 1960's, Megs did
a lot of television work, starred in her own series,
Weavers Green (1966), as a
country veterinarian, and even made tea bag commercials. Her
versatility and popularity as an actress ensured that she was never out
of work.- IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis
- SpouseGeorge Routledge(1943 - 1959) (divorced)
- Often played housekeepers and friendly motherly roles
- Originally trained to be a ballet dancer.
- Played Mrs. Grose in two adaptations of the 1898 novella "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James: The Innocents (1961) and The Turn of the Screw (1974). Both productions featured a member of the Redgrave family: Michael Redgrave played the Uncle in the former while his daughter Lynn Redgrave played Miss Jane Cubberly in the latter.
- Her ashes were sprinkled within the Wirral Peninsula in her birth county of Cheshire, across the River Mersey from Liverpool, England.
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