She attended St Paul's Girls' School in London from 1919 until 1926, and played in the school's orchestra under Gustav Holst. She acted in school productions, but had no other acting experience, when she was accepted to study at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1926, where she was in the same class as Margaretta Scott. She later spent a term in Paris, studying under Pierre Fresnay at the Comédie Française. She later recalled her choice of an acting career with the comment, "I thought I'd rather like it. It was the only thing I was good at. And I thought it might be rather wicked."