Davina Whitehouse

Born Eileen Eliza Smith in London on 16 December 1912, Whitehouse was the daughter of Scottish-born David Smith and Florence Smith (née King). Her father died when she was two years old, and she was renamed Davina in his memory. Her mother remarried an ex-soldier 10 years later. In 1941 she married John Henry Archibald Whitehouse, and in 1952 they and their children emigrated to New Zealand. Davina Whitehouse became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1977. ==Career==

Britain (1929–1952) Whitehouse having attended a boarding school, was accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art aged 15, and graduated in 1929. Using the stage name Davina Craig, her acting roles were initially rare, but in 1932 she was seen by Ivor Novello and he offered her a role in a touring play, I Lived with You, which later was made into the 1933 film of the same name, for which Whitehouse receive critical praise. She was then signed by Twickenham Film Studios, and between 1933 and 1939, Whitehouse appeared in over 40 films, most commonly playing a comic servant, but she also had some larger roles, including in The Private Secretary in 1935. Whitehouse's television career began in 1972, appearing in the TV play An Awful Silence. In 1977 became co-host of the TV chat show Two on One with Ray Woolf. On Australian television, Whitehouse appeared in numerous of the Crawford Productions series, including Matlock Police and The Box, as well as playing the role of Maggie May Kennedy in the Grundy production, Prisoner. Beginning in 1978, Whitehouse served a four-year term on the board of the New Zealand Film Commission. ==Honours and awards==

Whitehouse won for Best Actor at the 1973 Feltex Awards for her role in An Awful Silence. In the 1985 Queen's Birthday Honours, Whitehouse was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the performing arts, and in 1987 she was the subject of an episode of the New Zealand version of This is Your Life. Whitehouse received a best actress nomination for Face Value at the 1997 New Zealand film and television awards, and she received the Rudall Hayward Award for lifetime achievement in films at the 1998 New Zealand film and television awards. ==Later life and death==

Whitehouse wrote her autobiography, Davina – An Acting Life, published in 1999. She died on 25 December 2002 in Auckland, following a series of strokes. She was predeceased by her husband, Archie Whitehouse, and survived by their two children, one of whom (Steve) had an illustrious 30 year career working in the UN's radio and television units, where he documented global peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts. He died aged 73. ==Filmography==