Surprisingly in a woman who in the course of a long career had spread more nervous breakdowns among directors, leading men, supporting players and assistant stage managers than any other female star of her weight and age, Dame Flora's vocal delivery was soft and gentle. She had never been one of those empresses of stormy emotion so popular at one time on the silent screen who raged and bellowed; she got her effects more subtly. One of her playwrights, speaking from the nursing home where he was recovering from mental exhaustion, had once described her as the vulture who cooed like a dove.
(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
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