Valerie Hobson

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Babette Louisa Valerie Hobson (14 April 1917 – 13 November 1998)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> was a British<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> actress whose film career spanned the 1930s to the early 1950s. Her second husband was John Profumo, a British government minister who became the subject of the Profumo affair in 1963.

Early years

Hobson was born at Sandy Bay, Larne, County Antrim, in Ulster, Ireland, to Robert Gordon Hobson, who was a Commander in the Royal Navy, and Violette née Willoughby.<ref name = HobsonODNB>Template:Cite ODNB</ref><ref name="HobsonDIB">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="g">Template:Cite news Template:Open access</ref>

Before she was 11 years old, Hobson had begun to study acting and dancing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.<ref name="it">Template:Cite news</ref>

Career

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In 1935, aged 18, Hobson appeared as Baroness Frankenstein in Bride of Frankenstein with Boris Karloff and Colin Clive. She played opposite Henry Hull that same year in Werewolf of London, the first Hollywood werewolf film. The latter half of the 1940s saw Hobson in perhaps her two most memorable roles: as the adult Estella in David Lean's (1908-1991) adaptation of Great Expectations (1946),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and as the refined and virtuous Edith D'Ascoyne in the black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Hobson's last starring role was in the original London production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical play The King and I, which opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 8 October 1953. She played Mrs. Anna Leonowens opposite Herbert Lom's King. The show ran for 926 performances.<ref>Stanley Green, Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (New York, 1976: Dodd, Mead & Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts: DaCapo Press, 1980), p. 233.</ref>

Personal life and death

In 1952, Hobson divorced her first husband, film producer Anthony Havelock-Allan. In 1954, she married Brigadier John Profumo, a Member of Parliament (MP), giving up acting shortly afterwards. Profumo was a prominent politician of Italian descent.Template:Citation needed

After Profumo's ministerial career ended in disgrace in 1963, following revelations he had lied to the House of Commons about his affair with Christine Keeler, Hobson stood by him, and they worked together for charity for the remainder of her life, although she did miss their more public personas.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Hobson's eldest son, Simon Anthony Clerveaux Havelock-Allan, was born in May 1944 with Down's Syndrome, and died in January 1991. Her middle child, Mark Havelock-Allan, was born on 4 April 1951 and became a judge. Her youngest child is the author David Profumo, who wrote Bringing the House Down: A Family Memoir (2006) about the scandal. In it, he writes that his parents told him nothing of the scandal and he learned of it from another boy at school.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Hobson died in 1998, aged 81.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> After her death, her body was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium in accordance with her wishes. Half of her ashes were interred in the family vault in Hersham, and the rest were scattered on 1 January 1999 by her sons David Profumo and Mark Havelock-Allan, near the family's farm in Scotland.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Subscription required</ref>

Hobson was portrayed by Deborah Grant in the film Scandal (1989); by Joanna Riding in Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical Stephen Ward the Musical, which opened at the Aldwych Theatre on 19 December 2013; and by Emilia Fox in the BBC miniseries The Trial of Christine Keeler in 2019.

Filmography

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References

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