Gertrude Lawrence - Legacy

Legacy

In early 1953, Lawrence's name was included on a list of Columbia University professors who had died the previous year and were honoured with a memorial service and flags on the campus lowered to half-mast.

Richard Aldrich's biography of his late wife became a bestseller in late 1954 and 1955 and was purchased by Marilyn Monroe during a period when she stayed exclusively in New York and Connecticut, not California.

Lawrence's biographer Sheridan Morley wrote in 1981 that throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, "...most traces of Gertrude Lawrence ... disappeared; she died before television had begun to immortalise its artists on (video)tape, before radio shows were regularly recorded, and though she made half a dozen films, her appearances in them are mostly undistinguished and give no clear impression of a radiance which could hold theatre audiences spellbound."

In 1968, Julie Andrews portrayed Lawrence in the musical biographical film Star!, loosely based on the period of her life from her days as an unknown aspiring performer until her wedding to Richard Aldrich. Richard Crenna appeared as Aldrich. The real Aldrich, who in the 1960s no longer worked in the entertainment business, was a consultant on the film. Noël Coward was portrayed by Daniel Massey. Released at a time when the popularity of musical films was on the wane, it was a commercial failure; however, it was critically well received, and nominated for seven Academy Awards.

The Glass Menagerie, Lawrence's only film that was a box-office success and in which she worked with an American studio and an entirely American cast (the director was an Englishman whose entire career was in American cinema), was rarely shown on American television until 1992. During that year, American Movie Classics revived it with an introduction and postscript from the channel's host Bob Dorian. He revealed information about Lawrence to viewers, many of whom were not familiar with her.

Janet McTeer portrayed Lawrence opposite Geraldine Somerville as Daphne du Maurier and Malcolm Sinclair as Noël Coward in Daphne, a 2007 television movie broadcast by the BBC.

Three years after Lawrence's death, her daughter Pamela gave birth to Benn Clatworthy, the first of Lawrence's three grandchildren. He is now a tenor saxophonist based in Los Angeles. Lawrence's other two grandchildren, Sarah Hunt and Tom Clatworthy, are both residents of the United Kingdom.