- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMary Lydia Thornton
- Britain's first notorious post-war sex siren in films, the enticing, green-eyed blonde bombshell Christine Norden, was a singer and dancer who had been performing since her teens. The story goes that she was "discovered" by agents of the distinguished film mogul Sir Alexander Korda while waiting outside a theatre ticket line.
Born Mary Lydia Thornton of humble beginnings to a bus driver three days after Christmas 1924, she was the first entertainer to land on the Normandy beaches in 1944 to perform for Allied troops after D-Day. Korda promptly signed her to a seven-year contract and placed her in stark, dark-edged films as a fetching, sometimes singing femme; she appeared in a surprising number of quality films, including Mine Own Executioner (1947), An Ideal Husband (1947), Nightbeat (1947) and Saints and Sinners (1949).
A prime pin-up attraction over the years, she admitted to many affairs (with both men and women) over the years. By the early '50s her film career was over, however, and she trod the New York theatre boards for the next few decades, making her Broadway debut in the musical "Tenderloin" in 1960 and appearing in such productions as "Marat/Sade." She made history of sorts as the first actress to appear topless on Broadway in the 1967 production of "Scuba Duba."
Christine was married five times and has one of the craters of the planet Venus named after her as a tribute to her being a "forerunner of the modern sex symbol." Her last husband developed and named a mathematical formula in her honor. She eventually returned to London for her final years, developed a respiratory infection and died of lobar pneumonia following bypass surgery at age 63. Her memoirs were discovered posthumously but deemed too gamey to be published at the time. Friend and royal biographer Michael Thornton, to whom they were left, has now made segments of her private story public.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net - Christine was a talented and versatile actress whose stage career was as every bit as remarkable as her early film career. She appeared as a singing star at the London Palladium in 1930 in Swing Session which was followed by Cinderella at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1951 Her career on the Broadway stage began with a hit success in the musical Tenderloin in 1960 She was then presented in the comedy The Butter and Egg Man in 1966 and in 1967 she appeared for the National Players Company in Marat/Sade. Her role in the long running Scuba Duba earned a footnote in entertainment history when she played the legitimate theatre's first ever topless scene in Oh! Calcutta!,- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- She started out under her real name of Lydia Thornton as a band singer with ENSA entertaining the troops When she was 20. She was in a cinema queue in Edgeware Road in London when she was spotted by the Korda Brothers who quickly put her under contract, Her 2nd marriage was to film director Jack Clayton, In 1952 she went to America where she married a USAF sergeant then her 4th to film director Herbert Hecht. Eventually she returned to England and made a theatre comeback in 1970.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- SpousesGeorge Heselden(March 20, 1980 - September 21, 1988) (her death)Herbert Hecht(November 21, 1956 - March 16, 1961) (divorced)Mitchell Dodge(July 4, 1953 - August 13, 1955) (divorced)Jack Clayton(December 13, 1947 - April 27, 1953) (divorced)Norman Cole(May 6, 1944 - October 1947) (divorced, 1 child)
- Cause of death was pneumonia following a heart bypass operation. Husband at the time was George Heselden, a retired mathematician who used to work for the Ministry of Defence in London.
- Her father had been a Sunderland bus driver.
- Had a son Michael Cole born 1945 by her marriage to Michael Cole who was a Ministry of Defence mathematician.
- Sister of June Mitchell.
- She had a sister Elizabeth Shipp who was formerly the film actress June Mitchell.
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