Appeared with Alec Guinness in five different films: Oliver Twist (1948), Last Holiday (1950), The Horse's Mouth (1958), Tunes of Glory (1960) and Scrooge (1970).
Died seven days before her In Which We Serve (1942), The October Man (1947), This Happy Breed (1944) and Tunes of Glory (1960) co-star John Mills.
Her relationship with David Lean was best described as torrid and tormented, but even Lean's final wife, Sandra, once told a reporter: "She was terribly in love with him, and although she was an actress, she was in no way a prima donna. Truthfully, I think he should have stayed with her."
One of her best known roles was as Nancy in Oliver Twist (1948), directed by her then husband David Lean. She disliked this role as Lean would not allow her look as dirty or "more damaged" as she felt the role required.
She played the doomed Nancy in "Oliver Twist" (1948), a film for which she wrote a much-hailed opening sequence. She contributed the wordless opening montage, showing the title character's mother give birth violently, amid gathering storm clouds and wind-raked tree branches. She said her inspiration was a film she had seen as a child that had long haunted her.
Stepmother of Peter Lean from her first marriage and the adoptive mother of Gemma Jaques from her second.