Edna Best

Best, Edna (1900–74), actress. A British leading lady known for her delicate, gentle characters, she visited Broadway infrequently until the 1950s when she became a U.S. citizen. Best captivated American audiences in her first Broadway play, as the unfaithful wife Pamela in These Charming People (1925), and as Teresa Sanger in The Constant Nymph (1926), but few of her vehicles after were hits, even though her notices were usually complimentary. She particularly shone as the repressed housewife Millie in The Browning Version (1949), the timid but surprising spinster in Jane (1952), and the overbearing actress Madame Alexandra in Mademoiselle Colombe (1954).

• Born: Mar 03, 1900 in Hove, Sussex, England
• Died: Sep 18, 1974 in Geneva, Switzerland
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '30s-'40s
• Major Genres: Drama, Romance
• Career Highlights: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Swiss Family Robinson
• First Major Screen Credit: Escape (1930)

Biography

Making her first stage appearance at age 17, British actress Edna Best scored a substantial hit in the original 1926 staging of The Constant Nymph. Her most frequent stage co-star was Herbert Marshall, to whom she was married from 1928 until 1940; their daughter Sarah Marshall became an actress herself in the 1950s. Ms. Best's New York stage triumphs included the starring roles in Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion and Maugham's Jane. Infrequently seen in films, Edna Best's most memorable movie assignment included the mother of kidnap victim Nova Pilbeam in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and the wife of prodigal violinist Leslie Howard in Intermezzo (1939). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir Buy this Movie

Intermezzo Buy this Movie

South Riding Buy this Movie

The Man Who Knew Too Much Buy this Movie

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