Orders, Decorations and Medals

The D.B.E. and Variety Club of Great Britain Silver Heart Award to the actress Dame Margaret Rutherford

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, D.B.E. (Civil) Dame Commander’s 2nd type set of insignia, comprising shoulder badge, silver-gilt and enamel, mounted ‘bow and tails’; and breast star, silver, silver-gilt and enamel, in Garrard, London case of issue; The Variety Club of Great Britain, Silver Heart Award, for Best Film Actress of 1963, silver, hallmarks for London 1963, the ‘silver heart’ engraved and contained in red leather case of issue, this last very tarnished, otherwise nearly extremely fine (3) £1500-2000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Fine British Orders from the Collection of the late Thomas Halpin.

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Dame Margaret Rutherford was born in Balham on 11 May 1892, the daughter of William Rutherford and Florence Nicholson. She was educated at Wimbledon Hill School and Raven’s Croft, Seaford, Sussex, and qualified as a Licenciate of the Royal Academy of Music before teaching the pianoforte and elocution. She studied for the stage at the Old Vic, where she made her first theatrical appearance in 1925. She subsequently played in repertory at Oxford and Croydon, and with the Greater London Players. In 1936 she appeared in her first film Dusty Ermine but was to make her mark in theatre, establishing herself as a star performer in comedy and farce. The occasion of triumph for her special comic forte was provided by the roll of Madame Arcati, the medium, in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit - “you have taken up my pen and written it yourself” said the author. Following a tour of France and Belgium with E.N.S.A. in 1944, she returned to the London stage and in 1947 toured Canada and the U.S.A. with John Gielgud. Several successful film performances were made at this time - Blithe Spirit (1945), Passport to Pimlico (1949), The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950) and The Importance of Being Ernest (1952). In the 1960’s came the roll that was almost written for her, as Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple in Murder She Said (1962), Murder at the Gallop (1963), Murder Ahoy (1964) and Murder Most Foul (1965). In 1961 she was awarded the O.B.E. In 1963 she won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in the film The VIP’s. The same year she was awarded the Variety Club of Great Britain’s Silver Heart as Best Film Actress. For her great film and theatrical works she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1967. She died on 22 May 1972, having suffered from Alzheimer’s disease towards the end of her life. The Times concluded in her obituary that she never turned her back on the position to which the public had elected her, that of its favourite feminine exponent of robust eccentricity.