Crash Victim Noted Figure of the Stage

The last curtain will fall tomorrow in Hutchinson for Auriol Lee, 62, internationally known theatrical director and actress...

On July 2, 1941 Auriol Lee, died in a car crash on Highway 50, a mile west of the K-96 junction. Headlines of the accident were:

Woman Dies In Accident - The Hutchinson News, 7/2/1941, p 1

Crash Victim Noted Figure of the Stage - The Hutchinson News, 7/6/1941, p1

Her resting place will be on the Kansas prairie 5,000 miles from her native England because her wish was to be buried where she died, simply and quietly. Funeral arrangments were made by John Van Druten, a British playwright whom she collaborated with and her neice, actress Virginia Fields, whose real name was Margaret Cynthia. Other survivors included her sister, Mrs. St. John Fields. Auriol Lee has been married once to an English actor, Frederick Lloyd. They were divorced.

A list of her plays can be found here.

A list of her films can be found here. Not listed here is her third motion picture she had just completed in California, "Before the Fact", with Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Auriol was bound for New York to attend the wedding of the daughter of Dwight Deere Wiman, a producer. She was buried at the Fairlawn Burial Park.

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Bains News Service, publisher. "Auriol Lee (1st act)." Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. 2 July 2009 .