- guardian.co.uk, Sunday February 3 2008 00.10 GMT
- The Observer, Sunday February 3 2008
After seeing all Celia Johnson's 11 films and around 20 of her stage performances, what stands out are her eyes (the whites like marble, the pupils penetrating, whether seen on the screen or from up in the gods) and the voice (so precise, clipped, 'cutglass' as her detractors still say).
She was the embodiment of British middle-class stoicism, devotion to duty, self-sacrifice. Admirable as a dutiful, abnegatory daughter in Dear Octopus (1943) and The Holly and the Ivy (1952), she seized her single movie chance to demonstrate her comic gifts in The Captain's Paradise (1953), sending up her position opposite an equally unbuttoned Alec Guinness. In Ealing's earnest I Believe In You (1951), she's impressive as a no-nonsense probation officer, inducting pompous Cecil Parker into social casework and saving Joan Collins from lecherous Laurence Harvey.
But her greatest work in film were the three pictures written by Noël Coward and directed by David Lean: In Which We Serve (naval wife), This Happy Breed (a suburban wife, a role she was uneasy in), and as Laura Jesson in Brief Encounter, opting for family stability over romantic love.
Of her later work, two performances stand out: the Edinburgh headmistress confronting the disagreeably non-conformist Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and, teamed again with Howard, playing the expatriate wife of an alcoholic in presentday India in Staying On (1980), the unforgettable TV film of Paul Scott's coda to his Jewel in the Crown
There's an interesting 'might have been' to Johnson's career. Her husband Peter Fleming was the dashing author of travel books who late in life was eclipsed by his brother Ian, whose Bond books Celia didn't much care for. But she would have been a revolutionary M.
High Point 'Saw rough cut of Brief Encounter. Delighted with it. Celia quite wonderful' - Noël Coward Diaries, 1 June 1946
Low Point 'Dined with Larry and Viv and went to the opening of St Joan. Very excited at the prospect of Celia playing that part but was a little disappointed. She was lacking in guts and rather like Peter Pan.' - Noël Coward Diaries, 3 Dec 1947
Most Beautiful Tribute The gay sixth-former performing with affection the final scene of Brief Encounter in Alan Bennett's The History Boys.
Essential DVDs In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Brief Encounter in The David Lean Collection (Carlton); The Captain's Paradise in The Alec Guinness Collection (Optimum).
· Next Week: Max von Sydow
