Gwenllian Gill was a pretty Scottish lass that landed in Hollywood with much PB hubaloo, as  winner of a international “Search for beauty” contest. This shenanigan did give wind to her movie-aspiration-wings – she signed a contract, started acting right away, even had a leading role that same year… But, ultimately, Gwen preferred being back home and left it all to work in the UK movie industry. It’s a interesting twist of fate that more than 10 years after the fact, she returned to Tinsel town and this time she was there to stay. Or not? Let’s learn more about her!

EARLY LIFE

Gwenllian Mary Gill was born on December 11, 1915, in to Fredrick Gill and his wife, Flynn Gill, in Hartlepool, Durham, England. Her family was predominantly of Scottish origin. Her father was a construction engineer who specialized in dock construction. She had an older sister, born in the early 1910s.

Gwen grew up in Hartlepool and her first dramatic experience was in a school version of David Copperfield in which she played Betsy Trotwood. Gwen became very fond of acting and continued to do thespian work here and there, but with no clear plans for a future in showbiz.

At some point Gwen’s dad was put in charge of the new coaling dock works at Edinburgh, and the family moved there permanently. After graduating high school, Gwenllian worked as a window dresser in the city and went to an odd beauty contest here and there, without much thought of becoming an actress- But how life surprises us!

Then Paramount came to UK with a Search for beauty gimmick, looking for fresh and beautiful youngsters all around Europe to appear in the eponymous movie. Gwen’s sister secretly sent them her photo, and she was given a screen test. In the end, Gwen, at only 17 years old, who was chosen by Paramount to travel to Hollywood and had been offered a contract with the company tor six months. She took part in the production of a film, the purpose of which was to find “stars” of the future, and she has been awarded a bonus of 1000 dollars for the best female performance. Still a minor, she promptly cabled to Edinburgh for her father’s consent. Luckily, Frederick was very forthcoming, and replied congratulating his daughter and giving his full approval if she wished to accept. Gwen’s elder sister (who got her into this mess in the first place :-P) went go to Hollywood as her chaperone.

And her career started!

CAREER

Gwen’s career can be divided into three stages – early Hollywood career, UK career and later US career.

Meet Gwenllian Gill, your future motion picture stir. Selected as Scotland’s representative In Paramount’s international beauty contest, the winners of which appear in “Search for Beauty” coming Friday to the Palace theater, she was awarded a long term contract for her excellent work in that film.

Her first movie was, logically, Search for Beauty. So what’s all the fuss about? Ida Lupino and Buster Crabbe play athletes who are duped to serving as editors of a new health and beauty magazine which is only a front for salacious stories and pictures. This is putting it nicely – salacious stories. You very well know what we mean… Yes, sex sells! This movie is pure over-the-top everything! And so many pretty girls and boys in it, many, like Gwen, winner of the search for beauty contest. And it’s a proper Pre-Code movie – as one reviewer notes, there is “a jaw-dropping scene where Gertrude Michael zeroes in with binoculars no less on Crabbe’s crotch while he’s competing in the Olympics.” Whauza, some pretty heady stuff! This isn’t a movie to make you think, but to make you feel a bit giddy and naughty, and it does that in spades!

Gwen continued in similar vein, playing dancers/chorus girls in a string of movies. She was in Come On, Marines!, Murder at the Vanities, Shoot the Works, Here Is My Heart – they are all happy-go-lucky, upbeat musicals/comedies, sometimes with a top notch cast (Here is my heart features the greatest crooner of all – ladies and gentleman, Bing Crosby! while Shoot the works and Murder have some B tier actors, like Jackie Oakie, Arline Judge, Gertrude Michael, Dorothy Dell…).  But that was not all!

Gwen did more elegant fare with The Notorious Sophie Lang, a witty, sparking heist comedy with Gertrude Michael as the titular Sophie Lang, a cat burglar who nicks jewels all around Europe and the US. The police know her name but not her face, and Paul Cavanaugh plays a suave former jewel thief hired to find the elusive Sophie. You can probably guess the rets of the story, but who doesn’t like a lively, glamorous movie like this, especially with such an outstanding female lead!  More serious and thriller in tone but with the same cast was Menace (Gertrude Michael, Paul Cavanagh). The plot is typical manor murder mystery – Ray Milland (in one of his earlier roles) plays an engineer was persuaded (to put it mildly) to play cards with a merry group of socialites instead of managing his dam during a storm. When the dam bursts, he crashes his plane on purpose and dies. Or does he? Bottom line, a few years later, the same merry group gets together at a mansion and a maniac starts killing them, allegedly the brother of the deceased. It’s a fast paces, very tight little movie, fun to watch. Another mystery movie was Father Brown, Detective, one of the first adaptations of the story about the famous literary priest. Your enjoyment of the movie hinges on the answer to this question – does Walter Connolly make a good father Brown? Some find him great, some dismal and unable to compare with Alec Guinness (who played the same character 30 years later).

Gwen also appeared in two serious dramas, You Belong to Me and Behold My Wife!. The first is a completely forgotten drama about difficulties a child is having in accepting a new stepdad (with the very interesting Helen Mack as the female lead), and the second one is… well, a weird movie. Listen to the plot (taken from a review at IMDB): Gene Raymond’s elitist family doesn’t want Ann Sheridan (in one of nineteen screen appearances that year) to marry him, so they tell her he’s gone to Europe and hand her a check. She throws herself out of a window. Raymond gets in his car and goes on a drunken spree that ends in Arizona with a bullet in his shoulder, with Sylvia Sidney as his buck-skinned nurse. To gain revenge on his family, he marries her and takes her back to New York. Whoa, did you get that? While you can understand that the movie has some good intentions it’s somehow clumsy in execution, plus Sylvia Sidney playing an Indian woman? But that’s old Hollywood for you! Most reviewers were a bit aghast but still admitted to watching the movie out of sheer curiosity.

Gwen played her long sought leading role in Shock, a sadly forgotten WW2 drama. Gwen got some major coverage because of this role, and a large bulk of newspaper articles mention her solely because of her role here. There is a complicated, convoluted plot with switched identities, war trenches, amnesia, fiancée theft… But for a over the top drama it’s okay. Just don’t’ expect too much realism! The cast I b tier good (Ralph Forbes, Monroe Owsley…). Gwen plays the girl that the two main actors bicker over, and I have to say she looks very pretty and fresh in the photos, so I can understand their motivations. Too bad it seems nobody has watched the movie in ages!

Gwen returned to the UK, and made a string of quota quickies (The White Lilac, Flame in the Heather, King of Hearts, False Evidence, Murder Tomorrow, Irish and Proud of It) which are completely forgotten today and not much information can be found about them. it seems that the critics were not overtly enthusiastic about the movie either. Then the war started and Gwen concentrated her efforts on other things.

Gwen returned to Hollywood cca. 1951, and I suspect that many of her credits were not listed in IMDB. What we do have, however, are three movies and a couple of TV shows. Gwen’s first movie in her renewed US career was  Flight Nurse, a 1950s part chick flick, part war propaganda movie about a nurse that ferried wounded men in the US-Korean war. Like most 1950s movies, it’s over the top-orderly and clean, and not quite realistic, but it’s got Joan Leslie, always an endearing actress, and Forrest Tucker (don’t’ really know the guy, never watched him). Some reviews like the movie, some don’t, but overall I think it’s not a bad affair.

Gwen then appeared in two other women’s movies – The Best of Everything, a movie about the lives of working women in 1950s corporate America. This one I generally liked after watching it. It’s a grown up sister of fluff like Three coins in a fountain and The pleasure seekers. Mind you, it’s still not a realistic portrayal of women in the workforce (50s were not at all for realism, I am afraid), but it doesn’t shy away from some pretty serious issues. And the cast, while not outstanding, is pretty good – Hope Lange (don’t’ like her, have to admit), Suzy Parker( beautiful but can’t really act), Stephen Boyd (love the man! Now here’s a true charmer), Joan Crawford (always an ace!).

Gwen’s last movie was Midnight Lace, a woman in peril film with Doris Day in the lead. A loose remake of Gaslight, Doris plays an American living in London with husband, played by Rex Harrison. She starts being stalked and getting phone calls by a man saying he’s going to kill her. Since this is a movie produced by Ross Hunter, one thing can be expected – glamour! The guy who resurrected Lana Turners career and brought back melodrama into the mainstream hold sure knows how to do stuff on a grand scale! Doris looks gorgeous and hands incredible outfits, as does the rest of he cast. But all the extravaganza aside, it’s s solid thriller, with Doris proving she can play a women on the verge of  mental breakdown very well. And the supporting cast is a treat! Myrna Loy, Roddy McDowall, Natasha Parry, John Gavin, are all in top form!

PERSONAL LIFE

When Gwen only arrived in Hollywood, she was hailed as a girl that “takes” in still photographs a likeness closely resembling Joan Crawford. Gwenllian also gave a beauty hint for the readers, which goes like this:

When the girl with the high forehead plucks her eyebrows to a thin line, the breadth and depth of the forehead are emphasized and the effect unbalanced. She, therefore, should allow her brows to grow more or less naturally, plucking them very lightly, and only to keep them from presenting a badly groomed appearance.

When she first came to Hollywood, Gwen didn’t have it easy. She suffered from a bad case of homesickness. and was advised to return to Scotland for a visit with her family to help with the transition. She was also a very down-to-earth and thrifty person, riding the bus to work and saving money from the 1000$ she won as a part of her contract.

There was a funny story (coincidence) in Gwen’s life. One day Gwen walked out of the studio restaurant and ran smack into a man who wanted to enter. She was first annoyed and then puzzled. She took a second look. That man turned out to be none other than Lionel Tregellass who made the screen test  in England that resulted in her winning the contest and arriving in Hollywood. He was working at the studio” as technical director on Gertrude Michael’s picture, “Father Brown, Detective.” Also, while in Hollywood Gwen appeared on the stage in “ Double Door ” and “ The Milky Way”, both of which plays were later shown in film form

Ultimately, Gwen returned to the UK in December 1934 and stayed there for 10 years. She worked in the UK movie industry.  Here is an interesting newspaper article about Gwen from that period:

Allegedly Gwenillan got her first part on account of her sour tongue People who have spoken to this charming young actress will find this hard to believe She admits however that she dislikes very hearty people and the kind of folk who are boisterously cheerful in the face of minor disasters — not so difficult to understand for most people prefer a sort of restrained sympathy when the toast is burnt or when you miss your putt Perhaps it is an indication of a super-conscientious outlook that she liked working all the time at high pressure and is restless and fidgety when in her dressing room She feels she should be on the set and when not actually acting she is usually to be found trying to find out things about cutting and the reason why things are done by the cameraman and technical staff She spends practically all her leisure time seeing pictures and except for an occasional game of squash she thinks of little else Miss Gill confesses that she was very unpopular at school because of a tendency to argue but she never commits the cardinal sin of arguing with her film director “ If there is any difference of opinion as to how a part should be interpreted I consider the artist should always give way to the director” she says Miss Gill’s views on temperament are interesting Temperament just for mere sake of it she says is practically unknown but it is quite a different matter when conscientious artists fluff their lines They are naturally upset as any good craftsman would be when good work is spoiled The kind of parts Miss Gill likes best are strongly emotional roles and “ tough ” women Her pet aversion is ingenues although she has even appeared in this type of characterization with success.

Gwen appeared in quota quickies, and there met the man she would marry – director Donovan Pedetly. A seasoned quota-quickie churner, Donovan was a able tradesman who could make a movie in 7 days, but hardly an artist nor indeed even concerned with such things. He was born on July 28, 1903, in Tynemouth, England, Pedetly entered the world of movies ads as a PR, and worked as PR man to famous actress María Corda. Later he became a talent scout for Paramount and ultimately a London stage director and movie director. He was married once before, to Evelyn Hooper, in 1923, and their son Michael John was born on January 29, 1934.

While I can’t say for certain what happened and what the situation was, it seemed that it is possible that Gwen and Donovan met before he was divorced from Evelyn and fell in love. They could not marry, hence the obvious reasons, but remained in touch even after their work obligations were finished.

The war started in 1939, and changed the global scene and lives of almost everybody, including Gwen and Donovan. Any career or other plans put on hold, Gwen gave up her acting work to volunteer with the British army. After the war ended, Gwen was summoned to the US as a British Information officer, went there in February 1946, stayed for a time in Palm Beach, California and later lived and worked in Seattle. She and Pendently married in 1949 in the US. In 1951, the couple moved to Hollywood where Gwen tried to resurrect her career, and Donovan became a Hollywood correspondent for several newspapers and a frequent contributor to British fan magazines

The Pendetlys lived the sunny California life until 1979 when they moved to Eureka Spring, Arkansas, where they worked at the Great passion Play, Gwen as a actress and Donovan as a director. Gwen later ventures into other trades, working in a antique store and a print shop. She retired in 1987 to take care of her ailing husband.