Edition: U.S. / Global

Wendy Hiller, Spirited Actress, Dies at 90

Published: May 17, 2003

Dame Wendy Hiller, the distinguished English stage and screen actress who was George Bernard Shaw's choice to play two of his most famous heroines, Eliza Doolittle and Major Barbara, died on Wednesday at her home in Beaconsfield, England. She was 90.

Dame Wendy's performances were celebrated for spirit and integrity, and she became a major film personality despite only a handful of starring roles in movies.

In her 20's, she became an international film star by playing Eliza, the celebrated Cockney flower seller, exchanging barbs and grimaces with Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard) in the 1938 film of ''Pygmalion,'' and an heiress turned Salvation Army worker, matching wits with her professorial fiancé (Rex Harrison), in ''Major Barbara'' (1941).

Dame Wendy was also memorable for her broad cheekbones and impeccable enunciation, in a warm but somewhat quavering voice. She cemented her fame by playing a materialist turned romantic in a lyrical 1945 film, ''I Know Where I'm Going!,'' and a lonely but resilient hotelkeeper in ''Separate Tables'' (1958), which earned her an Academy Award as best supporting actress.

She played an obsessive mother in ''Sons and Lovers'' (1960), a steadfast wife in ''A Man for All Seasons'' (1966), a fussy Russian princess in ''Murder on the Orient Express'' (1974) and a compassionate nurse in ''The Elephant Man'' (1980).

Her other films included ''Outcast of the Islands'' (1952), ''Something of Value'' (1957), ''Toys in the Attic'' (1963), a television adaptation of ''David Copperfield'' (1969), ''Voyage of the Damned'' (1976), ''The Cat and the Canary'' (1979) and ''The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987). Her last movie, in 1992, was the television film ''The Countess Alice,'' in which she played the title role, a former society beauty who is interviewed 50 years after her fame.

Dame Wendy said she had tried to make only films that were ''rather special and have stature,'' and to play only roles that were ''undull.'' She repeatedly rejected parts she did not believe in and passionately pursued those she liked.

She was also noted for carefully shaping and defining memorable characters. Basil Rathbone, who starred with her in the play ''The Heiress,'' an adaptation of Henry James's ''Washington Square,'' said he had never rehearsed with any performer who worked with such concentration, adding, ''She shuts everything else out in a most absolute way.''

Shaw chose her to star in his plays ''St. Joan'' and ''Pygmalion'' in a 1936 festival at Malvern, Worcester, before selecting her for the film adaptations of ''Pygmalion'' and ''Major Barbara.'' She described him as ''a most approachable and understanding person who talked to me a good deal.''

Dame Wendy recalled that at the age of 81, Shaw would stay up to all hours watching rehearsals of ''St. Joan.'' ''Once,'' she said, ''it was 3 in the morning when we finished rehearsing, and Shaw came up on the stage and said quietly, 'If you'd like to go through that again, I'd like to listen.' We were pale gray, and he was pink and fresh and blooming.''

''He's a wonderful actor,'' she said. ''He used to act out all the parts, and he always put us to shame. He's also a cruel mimic. Once he gave me a demonstration of my walk; he said I walked like a schoolmistress. He made me feel the way I walked, and I never walked like that again.''

Wendy Hiller was born on Aug. 15, 1912, in Bramhall, a Cheshire town. Her father, Frank Watkin Hiller, a cotton-cloth manufacturer, and her mother, the former Marie Elizabeth Stone, also had three sons, René, Michael and John.

After completing secondary school, Wendy joined the Manchester Repertory Theater, where she was a bit player and later an assistant stage manager. Over the next five years, she won increasingly important roles and gained her first starring part, as the Lancashire heroine in ''Love on the Dole,'' an adaptation of Walter Greenwood's novel. Her acclaimed performance helped make the play a hit in London in 1935 and on Broadway in 1936.

A year later, she married Ronald Gow, one of the two writers who adapted the work for the stage. They had two children and lived quietly in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Mr. Gow died in 1993, and Dame Wendy's survivors include their daughter, Ann, and their son, Anthony.

She often limited her film and theater work to be with her family, but remarked to an interviewer that it was ''impossible to make a success'' of both home and career all the time.

''Pygmalion,'' which was later the basis for the Lerner and Loewe musical ''My Fair Lady,'' gave Dame Wendy some of her finest scenes. As a reformed Cockney, she passes her tryout tea party by stressing her ''H's'' precisely while informing her guests that ''in Hampshire, Hereford and Hartford, hurricanes hardly ever happen,'' her famous elocution lesson.

In a later scene, she artfully blends pride and tension at a ball where she winningly impersonates a grand lady, conveying a stunning character transformation. The actress graciously credited this change entirely to Shaw, saying: ''He changes Eliza mentally. That is why the change is so profound.''

In World War II, Dame Wendy went on extensive factory tours throughout Britain, appearing as Viola in ''Twelfth Night.'' Later, on Broadway, her critical and popular triumphs included ''The Heiress'' (1947), ''A Moon for the Misbegotten'' (1957), ''Flowering Cherry'' (1959) and ''The Aspern Papers'' (1962), another James adaptation. In 1975, Queen Elizabeth II named her a Dame of the British Empire.

Dame Wendy's occasional television roles included an imperious but vulnerable principal of a women's college in a 1983 mystery, ''Miss Morison's Ghosts.'' Reviewing her performance in The New York Times, John J. O'Connor said she had ''reached that stage of her career where she can make the tiniest gesture speak volumes.''

He added, ''Her performance is the equivalent of a master class in acting.''

Photo: Wendy Hiller as Eliza, with Leslie Howard in ''Pygmalion'' (1938). (MGM)