An established British stage comedienne, Coral Brown began making film appearances in 1936. She is best remembered for her all-stops-out portrayal of perpetually soused actress Vera Charles in Auntie Mame (1958) and of blinkered dowager Lady Claire Gurney in The Ruling Class (1972). Later assignments included the 1983 TV movie An Englishman Abroad, which dramatized the chance meeting in the 1930s between Ms.