Maxine Audley (born in London on 29 April 1923) was a striking, dark-haired stage star trained for the stage in both New York and London, making her debut in 1940. She had seasons at Stratford (1949-1950, 1955, 1957) as well as appearing in modern plays and the musical 42nd Street (1986). Her first film was the short The Pleasure Garden (d. James Broughton, 1952), and she had some memorable supporting roles, including Ada Leverson in The Trials of Oscar Wilde (d. Ken Hughes, 1960), Julia in Val
Guest's excellent thriller Hell is a City (1959), and, most famously,
Anna Massey's blind whisky-drinking mother in Michael Powell's notorious
Peeping Tom (1960). She never again had such a rewarding batch and made several very minor 'B' movies, but she was stimulating company. She was still appearing
on TV just before she died on 23 July 1992. Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Cinema
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