The Lady Constance Malleson was a British writer and actress.
Background
Malleson was born Constance Mary Annesley on 24 October 1895 at Castlewellan Castle in Northern Ireland. She also had two half siblings, Lady Mabel Annesley and Francis Annesley, 6th Earl Annesley, from her father"s first marriage to Mabel Wilhelmina Frances Markham.
Education
After graduating she studied in Paris and Dresden and spent the 1922 season with the Plymouth Repertory Theatre as lead actress.
Career
Annesley"s sister, Lady Clare Annesley, was a feminist and pacifist who stood as a Labour Party parliamentary candidate in the 1920s and 1930s. Annesley trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Artist The couple divorced in December 1922 after Miles failed to comply with a decree for restitution of conjugal rights obtained by Constance on 15 May the same year.
Malleson took up acting because she believed "that every woman ought to be able to earn a living." She was concerned with fair wages for all actors going on to speak publicly about the importance of securing the minimum wage of 3 pounds a week and payment for rehearsal for everyone, not just lead actors.
Malleson appeared in many West End productions, including The Orphans at the Lyceum Theatre, and at least one film, Hindle Wakes. She joined the Hull Repertory Theatre Company for the 1925 season appearing in several productions including Peter and Paul and Advertising April, alongside actor Colin Clive, and a C. K. Munro production of At Mistress
Beam"son Malleson believed that the short run plays that define repertory theatre were important for the development of young dramatists because they provided an opportunity to see how an audience reacts to one"s work.
In March 1928, Malleson produced a stage version of her three-act play The Way. The cast, which included Una O"Connor and Charles Carson, and was headed by Moyna Macgill in the role of Rosaleen Moore, a part written for her by Malleson.
The play was performed twice and was reviewed by The Times as a "pretentious sham!"
The pair met in 1916 at a trial for Clifford Allen, then, chairman of the Number-Conscription Fellowship. Their affair eventually ended because Malleson did not want children.
Her interest in social reform led her to travel abroad, and she carried out lecture tours in Scandinavia in the 1930s and 1940s.