Mary Brough

Mary Brough was born Mary Bessie Brough in London in 1863 from a long theatrical family, eldest daughter of well-known stage actor Lionel Brough. Mary made her first professional stage appearance in 1881, her roles varied from the classics to light comedies and popular melodramas at the Drury Lane Theatre, which include 'Henry IV', 'David Copperfield', 'Oliver Twist', 'The Brass Bottle', 'Mr. Wu', 'Lord and Lady Algy', and many more, Mary became better known at the age of 60 when she appeared in many farces at the Aldwych Theatre for actor/manager Tom Walls from 1922 such as 'Tons of Money' alongside Ralph Lynn and Robertson Hare, she made a great success in the part and became a key member of the team that ran nearly continuously from 1922 to 1934. Brough appeared in more than 66 movies, where she was best known for her comic characters often seen as fearsome cockney women and sometimes aristocratic occasionally sympathetic and sometimes monstrous, making her film debut in Sidney Morgan's 'The Brass Bottle' in 1914, her most notable film roles as Mrs. Cratchit in 'A Christmas Carol' with Charles Rock for the London Film Co in 1914, as Mrs. Lee in George Pearson's 'Squibs' with Betty Balfour in 1921, as Mrs. Mullet in 'Ton of Money' with Leslie Henson in 1926 and as Mrs. Spoker in 'A Cuckoo in the Nest' with Ralph Lynn in 1933. In 1934 Mary played in a new farce, 'Indoor Fireworks' at the Aldwych when she was taken ill in her dressing room, she was nursed at her home in Southwell, South London, where she died at the age of 71.