The Haunted Palace Blog

Ghosts & Hauntings, Bizarre, England, General, Ghosts, Halloween, Supernatural

The Actress and the Cursed Jacket

Dame Thora Hird was one of the most respected and admired British actress of the last century. However, one curious footnote in her life links her to a very unusual ghost story — a haunted bolero. But did it actually happen or is it merely an urban legend?

Miss_Jessel

October 31, 2024

7–10 minutes

Bolero jacket, Duke of York theatre, Haunted clothing, London ghosts, Theatre ghosts, Thora Hird, Urban legends

Dame Thora Hird, 1974, image by Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0 <Deed – Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported – Creative Commons>, via Wikimedia Commons (Amended by Lenora.

London theatres are no strangers to ghost stories. Stories abound of the spirits of theatre managers refusing to leave and phantom actors still treading the boards, long after they had taken their final curtain call. There are even tales of ghostly audience members who appear after the theatre is shut down to watch an invisible performance or even during a show, still drawn by the bright lights and magic of the stage.

Among the many ghost stories of London theatres, there is one which stands out. Partly because of its strangeness but also because it involved one of Britain’s most beloved and finest grand dames of stage, television, and film, Dame Thora Hird. Although it is a more recent ghost story, there is a surprising lack of information on what happened, and what is “known” is vague and confusing. Leading many people to believe that it is simply an urban legend.

Interior of the Duke of York’s Theatre, London. Image by Anthony O’Neil, CC BY-SA 2.0 <creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Dame Thora Hird

“As a person she was a rich and wonderful character, as an actor she had few equals.” Michael Parkinson (Television Presenter)

Thora Hird was born on 28 May 1911, in Morecambe in Lancashire. Her father, James Henry Hird was an actor and the manager of several local theatres including the Royalty Theatre. Her mother, (Jane) Mary was also an actress. Her parents had met while travelling in the same theatre company. So, you can truthfully say that for Thora, the theatre was in her blood. Indeed, she made her first theatrical appearance at the age of only 8 weeks, carried on stage by her mother[1]. As soon as she was old enough, she joined her father’s company. In 1931 she joined Morecambe Rep. and was discovered by Ealing Studios and put under contract.

Over the next 70 years, Thora Hird became a mainstay of the British stage and screen, appearing in over 500 plays and more than 100 television and film roles[2]. She was a brilliant character actress, often cast as the wise and all-seeing boarding house landlady, the gossiping neighbour, or the sharp-tongued mother-in-law. A favourite actress of the brilliant playwright, screenwriter, and author, Alan Bennett who memorably cast her in his Talking Head monologues, “A Cream Cracker Under the Settee” and “Waiting for the Telegram”. Her outstanding performances in the monologues won her one of her three BAFTAS. In 1993, she was honoured with a damehood for her services to drama.

Alan Bennett image by Allan Warren, CC BY-SA 3.0 <creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. Amended by Lenora.

Dame Thora Hird worked into her 90s. She died on 15 March 2003, at the age of 91, from a stroke. At the time she was living at Brinsworth House, a retirement home for actors in south-west London[3].

So, the question that arises is, how did this well-respected and beloved Dame of the theatre become linked to the very bizarre story of a haunted piece of clothing, and why is so little really known about what truly happened?

“The Strangler Jacket”

In the late 1940s, Thora Hird was one of the actors performing in a London revival of the period play The Queen Came By at the Duke of York Theatre.

For the play, Thora had to wear a short-backed black velvet bolero-style jacket. Things started off well. Thora performed her part, and the play was a great success, but strangely enough, every time, she put the jacket on, she found it felt slightly tighter than before. Eventually, she came to detest wearing the thing. It was said that after one performance, she came off stage complaining ‘Get this thing off me! The jacket’s trying to squeeze me to death! I can’t breathe!’[4].

Thora was not the only person to reportedly suffer the torment of the dreaded jacket. Her understudy, Erica Foyle also had the same unpleasant experience, as well as the stage manager, Marjorie Page; and the wife of the play’s director, Mrs. Frederick Pifford. The latter didn’t feel that she was being choked but when she took it off, she noticed red weals around her throat, indicative of having been strangled[5]. It was also said that Marjorie Page, later revealed that she while wearing the jacket, she had seen the apparition of an unknown young woman also wearing the jacket.

Victorian Bolero. Image adapted by Lenora.

It is said that mediums were brought in to try to find out what was going on with the jacket. One version of events states that nothing was discovered[6] while another reports that one of the mediums had a vision[7]. This vision was of a girl being attacked; her clothes torn by an angry man. The medium saw the girl fall backwards, drowned in a barrel of water, the man dragging her body down a flight of stairs, and then wrapping her wet and dripping corpse in a blanket. At this point, the vision faded.

The story later became embellished. The murder was said to have taken place in the Victorian era. The man who killed the girl was her jealous lover who throttled her to death. She had been wearing the jacket at the time. He had removed the bolero, to strip her of anything that might identify her and dumped her body in the river[8].

The historian and ghost expert, Peter Underwood, wrote that the bolero was eventually sold to an American buyer, named Lloyd, who was aware of the jacket’s infamous reputation. Underwood reports that Lloyd’s wife, his 16-year-old daughter, and 2 other women tried the jacket on and had the exact same choking experience[9].

An Urban Legend or Unsolved Victorian Murder

As I mentioned previously, for a ghost story that happened relatively recently, there is surprisingly little information on what happened. It was said that Thora Hird mentioned the incident in her autobiography, but I couldn’t find a reference.

There is also the confusion about where the haunting took place. Most reports say that it happened at the Duke of York theatre during the 1948 run of the play. But, in 1948, the play was not at the Duke of York Theatre but at The Embassy Theatre. The play transferred to the Duke of York the following year. However, Dame Thora Hird did perform the play in both theatres. Appearing in the list of performers in 1948 and being singled out in a theatre review from 1949, ‘Thora Hird as one of the overworked and underpaid assistants gives a sensitive performance’[10]. It is also unclear if Erica Foyle who was mentioned as being part of the company in 1948 was also still with the play in 1949 and if she was, was she Thora Hird’s understudy in one or both theatre productions? However, there is no real reason to suspect that she didn’t also go with the company when it changed venues.

One Exciting Night 1922 Lobby Poster. the author is unknown, but the work represents a public domain film of 1922., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Amended by Lenora.

The other bone of contention is who the murdered woman was that the medium supposedly saw in her vision. One name that is often ascribed to the unfortunate owner of the bolero is Edith Merryweather[11], a young Victorian actress. After scouring the internet, newspapers, and the Old Bailey records, I could find no mention of the ‘murdered actress’. It could be that she was just a minor actress, not well-known enough to have made a name for herself. She may very well have been murdered and her body never found or it could have been that she was listed under “missing” not “murdered” and that I just didn’t see the notice. Or simply that it was another unnamed actress who was murdered and no report on this unfortunate soul was ever made.

Finally, there is the bolero. Where did it come from in the first place and what happened to it? Some reports state that it was found in the costume department of the theatre[12] while another says that it was bought at a market stall[13]. All records of the whereabouts of the cursed bolero disappear after it reached America (if it ever really went there in the first place!). Did the American buyer horrified by the damn thing destroy it, hide it away, or sell it on to its next unsuspecting victim?

We will never know!

If you do have more information, please share it below. Maybe together we can discover the real story of “The Strangler Jacket”.

Happy Halloween!!!

[1] Thora Hird
[2]The incredible career of Dame Thora Hird – and the 1942 propaganda war film that started it all
[3] Private Funeral for Dame Thora
[4] Haunted Village and Valley
[5] Haunted London
[6] Haunted Theaters. Playhouse Phantoms, Opera House Horrors, and Backstage Banshees
[7] Haunted London
[8] Ibid
[9] Ibid
[10] Hampstead News, Thursday 14 April 1949
[11] The Complete Book of Ghosts: A Fascinating Exploration of the Spirit World from Apparitions to Haunted Places
[12] Haunted London
[13] The Complete Book of Ghosts: A Fascinating Exploration of the Spirit World from Apparitions to Haunted Places