Hedli Anderson
British actor and singer (1907-1990)
Antoinette Millicent Hedley Anderson (1907 – 1990) was an English singer and actor.
Known as Hedli Anderson, she studied singing in England and Germany before returning to London in 1934. Anderson joined the Group Theatre, and performed in cabaret and in the initial productions of plays by W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and Louis MacNeice. She married MacNeice in 1942; the couple had one daughter. They separated in 1960.
Among the composers and lyricists who wrote songs for her were Auden, MacNeice, Benjamin Britten, Elisabeth Lutyens and William Alwyn. Auden's "Funeral Blues" (also known as "Stop all the clocks", later to become famous through its use in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral) was originally written for Anderson and set to music by Britten as part of Auden and Isherwood's play The Ascent of F6 (1936), then revised by Auden as a separate poem.
In later years she owned, and cooked in, the Spinnaker restaurant in Scilly, Kinsale, County Cork, which specialised in seafood and Mediterranean and North African food.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hedli Anderson” as british actor and singer (1907-1990). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british actor and singer (1907-1990). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5697515. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1907, 1990, 1934 and 1942.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hedli Anderson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.