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Nova Margery Pilbeam (born 15 November 1919) is a British film and stage actress. She was born in Wimbledon. Her father was RADA-trained actor Arnold Pilbeam. Pilbeam had widely noted roles as a child stage actress. This led to much work in her teen years, appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), followed by her lead performance as Lady Jane Grey in Tudor Rose (1935). In 1937 when she was seventeen Pilbeam had a starring role in Hitchcock's Young and Innocent, for which she is most widely known. Her film career may have stalled somewhat when she was considered... MORE

Nova Margery Pilbeam (born 15 November 1919) is a British film and stage actress. She was born in Wimbledon. Her father was RADA-trained actor Arnold Pilbeam. Pilbeam had widely noted roles as a child stage actress. This led to much work in her teen years, appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), followed by her lead performance as Lady Jane Grey in Tudor Rose (1935). In 1937 when she was seventeen Pilbeam had a starring role in Hitchcock's Young and Innocent, for which she is most widely known. Her film career may have stalled somewhat when she was considered for Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938), but lost the role to Margaret Lockwood. In 1939 she appeared on an early British television drama. That year, David O. Selznick wanted Pilbeam for the lead in Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940) and thought she could be an international film star. However, her agent was worried about the length of a five-year contract and meanwhile Hitchcock, whose outlook on the film was not the same as Selznick's, auditioned hundreds of others over many months, at last giving the role to Joan Fontaine. Unlike other widely known English film actors of the 1930s Pilbeam never made LESS