 One of the most beautiful women in British films of the 1930s, Geraldine Fitzgerald had Dublin stage experience from 1932 before making such films as Turn of the Tide (d. Norman Walker, 1935), J.Arthur Rank's entry to professional film-making. An archetypal Irish redhead with green eyes, perfect features and a slightly husky voice, along with an incisive acting talent: what was British cinema to do with all this? The answer, sadly, is very little. Only The Mill on the Floss (d. Tim Whelan, 1937), as a fine, vivid Maggie Tulliver, challenged her; after that she was whisked off to Hollywood to play Isabella in Wuthering Heights (d. William Wyler, 1939) in which she (Oscar-nominated) alone looked as if she'd read the book. She had interesting roles in the US, like the second Mrs Wilson (d. Henry King, 1944), but always looked too intelligent for major stardom. She filmed in England only twice more: brilliant as the tippling adulteress in So Evil My Love (d. Lewis Allen, 1948) and as the suspected companion of The Late Edwina Black (d. Maurice Elvey, 1951). She became a potent stage actress in the US, especially in Long Day's Journey into Night (1971), and went on doing occasional films and TV until the early 1990s. The son of her first marriage is director Michael Lindsay-Hogg and Tara Fitzgerald is her great-niece. Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film
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