Valerie Hobson
British actress (1917–1998)
Babette Louisa Valerie Hobson (14 April 1917 – 13 November 1998) was a British actress whose film career spanned the 1930s to the early 1950s. Her second husband was John Profumo, a British government minister who became the subject of the Profumo affair in 1963.
Early years
Hobson was born at Sandy Bay, Larne, County Antrim, in Ulster, Ireland, to Robert Gordon Hobson, who was a Commander in the Royal Navy, and Violette née Willoughby.
Before she was 11 years old, Hobson had begun to study acting and dancing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Career
In 1935, aged 18, Hobson appeared as Baroness Frankenstein in Bride of Frankenstein with Boris Karloff and Colin Clive. She played opposite Henry Hull that same year in Werewolf of London, the first Hollywood werewolf film. The latter half of the 1940s saw Hobson in perhaps her two most memorable roles: as the adult Estella in David Lean's (1908–1991) adaptation of Great Expectations (1946), and as the refined and virtuous Edith D'Ascoyne in the black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949).
Hobson's last starring role was in the original London production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical play The King and I, which opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 8 October 1953. She played Mrs. Anna Leonowens opposite Herbert Lom's King.
“Valerie Hobson” enters the record as british actress (1917–1998). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Valerie, Hobson and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 May 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q437157. VIAF identifies the subject as 7590941. The Library of Congress control number is no90007884. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1998, 1963 and 1935.
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This entry incorporates text from “Valerie Hobson” 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.