June Langley

(b. Liverpool, **/**/1898 – d. Brighton, 31/08/1964). Actress. Miriam Gertrude Levy was the eldest daughter of Mabel Rushton and J. Langley Levy and the family came to South Africa when her father became the editor of The Sunday Times (1910-1942). Using the stage name of June Langley, she had a short but successful career on the Johannesburg stage, acting in several plays for Leonard Rayne at the Standard Theatre, including When London Sleeps, Two Little Vagabonds, The Prince and the Beggar Maid, The Glad Eye, Bella Donna and The Sign of the Cross, all in 1917. In many of them she appeared with Douglas Drew, whom she had married in March of that year. In addition she appeared as a “sweet young thing” in The Water Cure (1916), a short film directed by B.F. Clinton.

Her marriage to Douglas Drew (original name Douglas Lange) was short-lived and soon after their son was born she divorced him. In July 1918 she married John Sugden Moore, a wool merchant from Bradford in Yorkshire. Back in England she took the surname of her new husband, thus becoming June Langley Moore. Her younger sister Doris (b. 1902), who became a distinguished fashion historian and designed Katharine Hepburn’s costume for The African Queen (1951), married John’s brother Robert, and became Doris Langley Moore. Together the sisters wrote “The bride’s book, or Young housewife’s companion” (by Two Ladies of England/1932) and “The pleasure of your company: a text-book of hospitality” (1936). At home in Yorkshire, June Langley continued to act as a non-professional, notably for the Leeds Repertory Company. After her divorce from Moore she married Walter Bateson, a retired officer in the RAF, and died in Brighton at the age of 66. Her first-born son, who was named Cedric Joseph Lange, later changed his name by deed pole and as Jeremy Hawk had a successful career on stage, film and television. Actress Belinda Lang is Jeremy Hawk’s daughter and thus June Langley’s granddaughter. (FO)