Valerie Gearon was the only good Elizabeth

One thing that bothered me in the other two productions was the miscasting of Elizabeth Elliot. Elizabeth is supposed to be a strikingly beautiful woman of about 30, who in spite of her beauty, manages to repulse most suitors with her coldness and haughty manners. Gearon captured this perfectly. A former pin-up girl, she was still very lovely when this production was made. At the same time, she managed to exude insufferable pride with every movement and expression.

In the other two productions, both actresses were ~40, much too old for the part.
Now Phoebe Nicholls captured Elizabeth's personality perfectly, but in addition to being old, she was also unattractive. She was completely unappealing and you couldn't imagine how anyone could be "wild" for her, as Austen described. Davis is an attractive woman, but she lacked Elizabeth's generally frosty personality, showing it only in her rudeness to Anne.

"You two ought to be ashamed of yourselves . . . two grown men acting like . . . grown men!!!"