Facts, Fictions, and Fascism: A Life of Actor Mary Taviner (1909-1972)

Abstract

Despite an acting career spanning both silent film and talkies, as well as London and regional theatre, Mary Taviner was not a household name. In fact she attracted more press coverage for her political views, being an active fascist from the 1930s to the 1960s. She fell in with, and later fell out with, both Oswald Mosley and William Joyce, also known as Lord Haw Haw, and attempted to maintain the extreme right as a force in her corner of west London. The bizarre claims she made about her ancestry and lineage, and of being the reincarnation of a Scottish queen, also interested the press, and kept her in the public eye. Perhaps she hoped these tall tales would render her more interesting to producers and directors. Yet, after this fascinating life she died in relative obscurity, not even garnering an obituary in the film and theatre world’s main journal, and until now she has been little more than a passing mention, a footnote, in the history of the far right. However, as this article shows, beyond the amusement raised by the eccentricity and the myth-making, her life sheds light on the fringes of the acting world and the local operation of right-wing extremism over thirty years.