Portrait of Lila Kaye

Birthday profile

Lila Kaye

Lila Kaye, English actress (died 2012)

Born
November 7, 1929
Died
January 10, 2012
Zodiac sign
Scorpio
Birth year
1929

About Lila Kaye

Lila Kaye (7 November 1929 – 10 January 2012) was an English actress. She spent a number of years working in the United States, on Broadway and in television, before returning to England. She often played motherly and/or comedic characters, mostly on television, including Cathy Come Home (1966) as a staff member at a homeless shelter, and My Son Reuben (1975), co-starring Bernard Spear, as a Jewish mother and her bachelor son who jointly run a dry-cleaning business. She also appeared in films including Blind Terror (1971), The Black Panther (1977) and Quincy's Quest (1979), and found film success in later years for her performances in An American Werewolf in London (1981) as the conflicted rural barmaid trying to warn off the two doomed American backpackers, in Nuns on the Run (1990) as a formidable nun, and in Reason for Living: The Jill Ireland Story (1991; an American television film), in which she played Dorothy Ireland, the real-life mother of cancer-stricken actress Jill Ireland (played by Jill Clayburgh). Kaye appeared in Bert Rigby, You're a Fool (1989) as Mrs. Pennington, and in Dragonworld (1994) as Mrs. Cosgrove. In 1991, Lila played headmistress Mrs. Daphne Trout in series two and the first half of series three of the children's BBC television series Bodger & Badger. She appeared as a nurse in a notable Royal Shakespeare Company production of John Vanbrugh's play, The Relapse, at the Aldwych Theatre in London in 1967, alongside, among others, Donald Sinden, Patrick Stewart and Ben Kingsley. She debuted the role of Serafima Ilinitchna in Nikolai Erdman's The Suicide (1979). She was part of the cast of the Royal Shakespeare Company's epic stage production of Nicholas Nickleby on Broadway in 1981. Kaye starred in the title role of the short-lived U.S. television series Mama Malone a year later. She made guest appearances on several U.S. television series, such as Murder, She Wrote, Cheers and Dear John (reuniting her with An American Werewolf In London co-star Jenny Agutter). She resided in Florida before returning to Britain. Her last role was in the British television serial Julia Jekyll and Harriet Hyde in 1998, in which she appeared as "Granny Jekyll". After this role she announced her retirement.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Lila Kaye was born

Lila Kaye was born in 1929. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1929

  • #1 song"Singin' in the Rain"
  • Top movieThe Broadway Melody (first Best Picture winner)
  • Best-selling bookA Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst baseball All-Star Game proposed
  • Top headlineStock market crashes on Black Tuesday
  • Technology milestoneFirst Academy Awards ceremony held
  • Defining fadYo-yos
  • Notable inventionCar radio
  • World population2.10 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championPhiladelphia Athletics (World Series)
  • U.S. population121.8M

1929 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Lila Kaye's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19292026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$6,300$435,000
Average income$3,850$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population121.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.