June Langley

(b. Liverpool, **/**/1898 – d. **/**/****). Actress. Miriam Gertrude Levy was the eldest daughter of Mabel Rushton and J. Langley Levy, who became the editor of The Sunday Times in Johannesburg. She took the stage name of June Langley and appeared in at least one South African film, namely B.F. Clinton's The Water Cure (1916). She had a short, but successful career on the Johannesburg stage, acting in a number of plays for Leonard Rayne at the Standard Theatre in 1917, amongst them When London Sleeps, Two Little Vagabonds, The Prince and the Beggar Maid, The Glad Eye, Bella Donna and The Sign of the Cross. In some of these she appeared with Douglas Drew, to whom she was briefly married. However, after their son was born, she divorced him and on 27 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. Interestingly, her younger sister Doris (b. 1902), who became a distinguished fashion historian, 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). June Langley apparently continued to act, appearing in Fata Morgana at the Leeds Civic Playhouse in 1933. June’s first-born son, who was born Cedric Joseph Lange (Lange was presumably his father’s birth name), later changed his name by deed poll. As Jeremy Hawk he had a successful career on stage, film and television. (FO)