Actress.Born Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold in London, England, she was the daughter of a high-standing, Vienna-born, Jewish financier James Gingold and Kate Walter or Walters, an English-born housewife. Her paternal grandparents were the Turkish-born British subject, Moritz “Maurice” Gingold, a London stockbroker, and his wife, Hermine, after whom Hermione Gingold was named. On her father’s side she was descended from Solomon Sulzer, a famous synagogue cantor and Jewish liturgical composer in Vienna. Gingold was a childhood friend of Noel Coward until her mother warned her away from him.  She became an actress and celebrity, known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric persona, an image enhanced by her sharp nose and chin, as well as her deep voice, a result of vocal nodes which her mother encouraged her not to remove. She starred on stage in London and New York, in radio, films, television  and in recordings.  She will be most  remembered for her work in the films, Around the World in Eighty Days, Gigi, The Music Man, Gay Purr-ee and A Little Night Music.  While on tour in 1987, she tripped and fell at a railway station and died shortly afterward at the age of 89.  Her autobiograhy, How To Grow Old Disgracefully, was published the following year. (bio by: Dan) Cause of death: Cardiac problems, pneumonia