she appeared in major roles in two alfred hitchcock silent films, "downhill" (1927) and "easy virtue" (1928) and various other british films, before playing a number of grande dames in hollywood films starting in 1937, such as hitchcock's "suspicion" (1941), as well as in such films as "banana ridge" (1942), "gigi" (1958) and "a breath of scandal" (1960).