Actress
Younger sister of actress Viola Compton , novelist Sir Compton MacKenzie and Francis Compton.
Daughter of stage actors Edward Compton (d. 1918) and Virginia Bateman (d. 1940).
Grandmother of the actress Tracy Reed and Joe Pelissier.
Ex-sister-in-law of Charles Quatermaine.
She was awarded the CBE in the 1975 Queens Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.
Versatile British leading actress, on the London stage from 1916. Accclaimed for her performances as "Ophelia" in "Hamlet" (1925, opposite John Barrymore ), "Autumn Crocus" and (as "Ruth") in "Blithe Spirit". Acted in silent films during the 20s. In her later career, worked as a radio actress and appeared in character roles on screen, notably as "Emilia" in Orson Welles The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice and as the grandmother in The Virgin and the Gypsy . From the 1960s played many an indomitable dowager on British television.
Favorite actress of playwright Sir J.M. Barrie. He wrote the play, "Mary Rose", especially for her.
Gave birth to her only child at age 17, a son Harry Anthony Compton Pelissier (aka Anthony Pelissier ) on July 27, 1912. Childs father was her first husband.
On April 2, 1988, her only child Anthony Pelissier died at the age of 75.
She had two roles in common with Anna Neagle : (1) Neagle played Queen Victoria in Victoria the Great and Sixty Glorious Years while Compton played her in The Prime Minister and "Journey to the Unknown" {Poor Butterfly } and Compton played Florence Nightingale in Wedding Group while Neagle played her in The Lady with a Lamp .
She played Queen Victoria in both The Prime Minister and "Journey to the Unknown" {Poor Butterfly } .
Had her own drama school Fay Comptons Studio of Dramatic Art one of the pupils was Alec Guinness.
