VALERIE HOBSON’S NEW ROLE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28823, 18 February 1959, Page 2

VALERIE HOBSON’S NEW ROLE

Wife Of Leading Politician

(Bu SUSAN VAUGHAN)

One former ballet dancer who has no wish tq combine a stage career and marriage is* .elegant Valerie Robson,; who. left acting after her greatest triumph to marry Mr John Profumo, M.P. Since their marriage Ibur years ago, she has devoted all her energies to her hew Job’as a politician’s wife. She has accompanied her husband on Scores of election platforms and oil Official overseas visits. She has become a popular hostess at Westminster.:

Once she said: “I And I’m so terribly interested in it.. all. Though,- of course, all your personal life goes completely tq pqt.” Now, at the age of 40, Miss Hobson is beginning the -most exacting and exciting part, of her second career. Her husband has been appointed Minister' of State at the Foreign Office and she automatically becomes one of London’s top diplomatic hostesses. She will meet V.LP.S from all over the world and will entertain the hundreds of diplomats who are accredited to the Court of St. James.

Mr Profumo’s new job is an exhausting one which entails long visits to New York. But Miss Hobson hopes to avoid separations where possible,by accompanying her husband abroad. . , >

Valerie Hobson went on the stage at 15 as a ballet dancer and soon drifted into films. She was signed up by Hollywood and—hard though it is to . believe—appeared in such spine-chillers as “The Bride of Frankenstein” 'and "The Werewolf of London.” Back in London, just before the war, she married .Anthony Havelock-Allan who produced some of her most successful films. The marriage was dissolved in 1952. Miss Hobson made such films as

“The Drum,” “Contraband,” -and "The Years Between.” She was with Alec Guinness- in “Great Expectations,” “Kind Hearts and Coronets” and “The Card.” Then came the most dramatie step in her career. After a chance meeting with Richard Rodgers In New York, she was offered the much-sought part .of Anna in the London production of'“The King and I.”

At 35, Miss Hobson' became the

first English aetreSS to star at Drury Lane since the war, ending the American monopoly upheld by such stars as Mary Martin, Julie Wilson and Isobel Bfgley. *'