📍8 Wildwood Road, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London NW11 6UL, UK
1932 – 1939“I was born in February 1932 at Heathwood, our family's home at 8 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb, a leafy, carefully planned corner of north London on the edge of Hampstead Heath. My parents were Americans: my father, Francis, was an art dealer with a gallery in Mayfair, and my mother, Sara, had been a stage actress. Our red-brick house was filled with paintings, and beyond the garden gate lay the woods and open spaces of the Heath, where my older brother, Howard, and I roamed. My godfather, Victor Cazalet, gave me a pony named Betty for my third birthday, and my happiest childhood days were spent riding her through the woods of his estate in Kent, where we had a weekend cottage called Little Swallows. I loved animals of every kind, and I was never without a dog, a cat or some small creature. I went to Byron House, a Montessori school in Highgate, and took ballet lessons; at three I danced in a recital attended by the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. We were raised in the Christian Science faith of my mother and godfather. In April 1939, with war coming, my mother took Howard and me to America, and my father followed with the paintings. We settled in Los Angeles, and at nine I signed my first film contract. National Velvet, in 1944, made me a star, and I spent the rest of my life in films and, later, campaigning against AIDS. But I never forgot the green hush of Hampstead, the Heath, and riding Betty through the English woods.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today