'Shaw's favourite actress' dies

Dame Wendy's acting career began at the age of 18

Oscar-winning British screen and stage actress Dame Wendy Hiller has died at the age of 90.

Dame Wendy, who was reputedly George Bernard Shaw's favourite actress, had a distinguished career in the US and UK spanning more than 50 years.

She featured in films such as Murder on the Orient Express and The Elephant Man - and won the best supporting actress Academy Award in 1958 for Separate Tables.

Dame Wendy died on Wednesday at her home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, her family said.

Selected films

Pygmalion, 1938

Major Barbara, 1941

Separate Tables, 1958

Murder on the Orient Express, 1974

The Elephant Man, 1980

During her career she was often cast in aristocratic roles requiring a wry, peppery quality.

These ranged from the pert heroines of Shaw's plays to an imperious traveller in Sidney Lumet's film of Murder on the Orient Express.

She won rave reviews as the snobbish Lady Bracknell in a 1987 TV adaptation of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Dame Wendy (right) at the Oscars in 1967 alongside Julie Christie

Born in 1912 at Bramall, Cheshire, she was raised in Manchester and joined the city's Repertory Theatre at the age of 18.

Four years later she won the lead in the company's production of Love on the Dole, playing a girl from the slums.

Its success carried her to London and Broadway, and led to Shaw's offer of leading roles in productions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan in 1936.

Dame Wendy leaves a son and a daughter. A funeral service is planned at Amersham Crematorium on 27 May.