Background
Calthrop was born in Ashton, Devon, the daughter of Frederick Theophilus Treeby and his wife Mabel. The couple had a son, Hugo, whose care Calthrop entrusted mostly to her mother.
Calthrop was born in Ashton, Devon, the daughter of Frederick Theophilus Treeby and his wife Mabel. The couple had a son, Hugo, whose care Calthrop entrusted mostly to her mother.
She was educated at Grassendale School, Southbourne, West Sussex. She was soon separated from her husband (she had lesbian relationships thereafter) and studied art at Slade School of Fine Artist
She is best known as the set and costume designer for many of Noël Coward"s plays and musicals. He was later killed during fighting in Burma. Calthrop was introduced to Noël Coward by Mistress
Astley Cooper while on holiday in Italy in 1921.
As she later recalled: "lieutenant was the first play I had ever designed so I was terribly excited, though there was nowhere to paint the sets except outside the theatre in Hampstead High Street, and the costumes all had to be made in a kind of basement there."
She stayed in New York after travelling there for the Broadway production of The Vortex, becoming Artistic Director for Eva la Galliene"s Civic Repertory Theatre, for whom she directed John Gabriel Borkman on Broadway in 1926. Her designs for Broadway included The Cradle Song (1927), This Year of Grace (1928), Bitter Sweet (1929), Autumn Crocus (1932), Private Lives (1931), Design for Living (1933), Conversation Piece (1934), Point Valaine (1935), Tonight at 8:30 (1936), Excursion (1937), Dear Octopus (1939) and Secretariat to Music (1939).
Calthrop continued to work as a designer in Britain until 1964. She also designed some films, including four Coward adaptations, in the 1940s.
In 1940 she published her first and only novel, Paper Pattern.
During World World War II, she served in the Mechanical Transport Corps. She also illustrated the Noël Coward Song Book (1953). She died at the age of 85.