Edith Barrett

Edith Barrett (19 January 1907 – 22 February 1977) was an American film actress.

Biography

Edith Barrett was a granddaughter of 19th-century American actor Lawrence Barrett.^[1] She entered the entertainment industry at age 16 in a staging of Walter Hampden's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. During the 1930s, Edith performed with Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre troupe.

While appearing in the Mercury Theatre 1937 production of The Shoemaker's Holiday, she married leading man Vincent Price, a union that lasted until 1948. She and Price had one son, Vincent Barrett Price, born in 1940. Edith's biggest Broadway success was as star of the now-obscure production Mrs. Moonlight.

Barrett made her first film in 1941, playing the homicidal, half-witted half-sister of Ida Lupino in Ladies in Retirement. Edith's most famous movie role was that of the mother-in-law of the unfortunate Mrs. Holland in I Walked With a Zombie (1943), producer Val Lewton's voodoo version of Jane Eyre; ironically, she was seen as Mrs. Fairfax in 20th Century-Fox's adaptation of the real Jane Eyre (1944).

Edith Barrett retired from films after essaying a minor role in The Swan (1956).

Notes

1. ^ Charles Brackett, The New Yorker, November 6, 1926, page 34.

Selected filmography

• Lady for a Night (1942)
• I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
• The Ghost Ship (1943)
• The Song of Bernadette (1943)
• Jane Eyre (1944)
• The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
• The Swan (1956)

External links

• Edith Barrett at the Internet Movie Database
• Edith Barrett at Allmovie

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