Career Highlights: Love From a Stranger, The Obsessed, Whom the Gods Love: The Original Story of Mozart and his Wife
First Major Screen Credit: Little Friend (1934)
Biography
Those few film historians who've commented upon Scottish character actress Jean Cadell have invariably emphasized her flaming red hair (in her earlier appearances) and piercing blue eyes. A stage actress from the turn of the century onward, Cadell entered films in 1919, often playing feisty young "lassies." Her first talkie was, appropriately enough, The Loves of Robert Burns (1930). Usually seen as sharp-tongued wives and remonstrating housekeepers, she was prominently cast in such films as David Copperfield (1935, as Mrs. Micawber) and Pygmalion (1937, as Mrs. Pierce). One of her most fondly remembered 1940s characterizations was as the Scots postmistress in the Boulting Brothers' I Know Where I'm Going. After years of secondary roles, Jean Cadell was afforded a star part--and star billing--in her next-to-last film, Like Unto You (1961). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Born in Edinburgh, she performed in the cinema and on the stage. One of her best known cinema roles was in the Ealing Studios comedy Whisky Galore! (1948). She once performed opposite W.C. Fields in Hollywood, cast as Mrs. Micawber to his Wilkins Micawber in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1935 production of David Copperfield. Although Cadell remains in the released version of the film, her biggest scene (when the Micawber family prepare to emigrate) was deleted from the release prints.