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Judith Anderson
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Anderson, Judith [née Frances Margaret Anderson‐Anderson] (1898–1992), actress. Coming to New York after gaining her earliest theatrical experience in her native Australia, she played with the stock company at the 14th Street Theatre, then toured with William Gillette in Dear Brutus in 1920. She first called attention to herself in New York with her clawing Elsie Van Zile in Cobra (1924), followed by recognition as the spoiled, unstable Antoinette Lyle in Behold the Bridegroom (1927), succeeding Lynn Fontanne as Nina Leeds in Strange Interlude (1928), and playing the Unknown One in As You Desire Me (1931). After touring as Lavinia Mannon in Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), Anderson enjoyed a succès d'estime as the Woman in Come of Age (1934), and a year later played Delia Lovell, who raises her sister's illegitimate child, in The Old Maid. In 1936 she was Gertrude opposite John Gielgud's Hamlet, and her Clytemnestra in A Tower Beyond Tragedy (1940), Lady Macbeth in 1941, and Olga in The Three Sisters (1942) further enhanced her reputation. Her greatest performance was probably in Medea (1947). Writing in Theatre Arts, Rosamund Gilder observed, “Her Medea is pure evil, dark, dangerous, cruel, raging, ruthless. From beginning to end she maintains an almost incredible intensity, yet she varies her moods so constantly, she moves with such skill through explored regions of pain and despair that she can hold her audience in suspense throughout the evening.” In 1953 Anderson was the domineering mother Gertrude in In the Summer House, stumbled badly as Hamlet in 1971, then triumphed as the Nurse in a 1982 revival of Medea. One critic described the dark, hard‐faced actress as a “diminutive woman, burning with passion, [who] gave heroic performances.” In 1984 an Off‐Off‐Broadway theatre on Theatre Row was named after her.
| Biography: Judith Anderson |
Judith Anderson (1898-1992) rose to prominence on stage and in films in America in the 1930s and 1940s, playing classical tragic heroines and dark character roles. She was probably most widely known for her film portrayals of the soap opera matriarch Minx Lockridge on NBC's "Santa Barbara" (1984-1987) and as a Vulcan High Priestess in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock".
Judith Anderson was born Frances Margaret Anderson in Adelaide, Australia, on February 10, 1898, to an English mother and Irish father. The latter had made (then quickly lost) his fortune in silver mines while his four children were still young. At an early age Judith was given lessons in singing and piano, but displayed a talent for elocution. After winning top honors in an elocution contest for recitation, she signed on as an actress with a touring Australian stock theater company, making her professional debut in 1915 in Sydney in A Royal Divorce at the age of 17. Three years later she and her mother traveled to America to explore the possibilities of success in the fledgling American film industry. But a letter of introduction from her Australian theatrical managers to movie director Cecil B. DeMille did little to impress. Anderson's features (not "cute" or "beautiful" by Hollywood standards) and her diminutive size (5 feet 4 inches) made her a liability, rather than an asset, to film acting at that time.
The mother and daughter pair then made their way across country to New York City to attempt to break into the legitimate theater. Judith would travel from one producer's office to the next looking for work, while her mother eked out a living for them as a seamstress in their one-room apartment. As luck would have it, Anderson was "discovered" by the director of the Emma Bunting Stock Company when, tired and ill from the flu, she collapsed in a producer's waiting room. Passing by, he offered her a place in the acting company at $40 a week (although she had to supply her own costume). Within a year's time she was making $50 a week and playing leading roles. In 1920 she performed in a tour of the play Dear Brutus with one of the major stars of the day, William Gillette. Anderson had her first success on Broadway as Elsie Van Zile in a melodrama called Cobra (1924).
In the late 1920s and early 1930s she established herself as an actress of great emotional depth in serious dramas such as Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude and Mourning Becomes Electra, Luigi Pirandello's As You Desire Me, and Zoë Adkin's The Old Maid. She played Gertrude in Guthrie McClintic's production of Hamlet with John Gielgud in the leading role and Lillian Gish as Ophelia in 1937 as well as Lady Macbeth to Maurice Evans' Macbeth on Broadway in 1941 (a role she was to repeat several times both on stage and on television).
Perhaps Anderson's greatest stage triumph was the mythic, evil seductress Medea, which she first performed in 1947 in an adaptation especially written for her by her lifelong friend poet Robinson Jeffers (and for which she won a Tony award in 1948). One critic called her Medea "pure evil, dark, dangerous, cruel, raging, ruthless. From beginning to end she maintains an almost incredible intensity … she moves with such skill through explored regions of pain and despair that she can hold her audience in suspense throughout the evening."
Anderson's film career initially began in 1933, when she played a gangster's moll in Blood Money. She did not adjust well at first to the demands of film acting, but received an Oscar nomination in 1940 for her portrayal of the menacing housekeeper Mrs. Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock's mystery Rebecca. Her major films include Kings Row (1942), Stage Door Canteen (1943), Laura (1944), And Then There Were None (1945), The Furies (1950), Salome (1953), The Ten Commandments (1956), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958).
Her favorite actress was Sarah Bernhardt, who, like Anderson, excelled in dramatic roles and continued to act well into her seventies. In 1970 Anderson toured in a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, playing the title role of the young, brooding prince at the age of 72. She was much maligned by critics in this endeavor, who, in this day and age of realism, could not overcome the anachronism of having someone of Anderson's age and gender play the role. Responding to questions about accepting roles in soap operas and popular films, she noted in an interview that "Bernhardt … would have accepted a daytime drama if they offered her one."
Anderson's acting can be described as very intense, focused, and controlled. She belonged to a generation of American actresses that included Ethel Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Laurette Taylor, and Katherine Cornell, women who represent the "classic" school of American acting, between the histrionic melodramas of the 19th century and the realistic "kitchen sink" dramas of the 20th. Her early training and success in elocution produced a mellifluous speaking voice, rich in tone and depth, which one critic referred to as "heavy" and "haunted," belonging "in the National Archives as a permanent treasure."
She was named Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1960 by Queen Elizabeth II for her outstanding contributions to acting. She also won two Emmys for the two performances as Lady Macbeth she gave on television (1954, 1960) and another Tony award in 1982 playing the nurse to Zoë Caldwell's Medea. Anderson was married and divorced twice. She died of pneumonia at her beloved California home on January 3, 1992 at the age of 94.
Further Reading
Synopses and insights into Anderson's career can be found in the following works: "Theatre Arts Monthly" (1936, 1939), Great Stars of the American Stage (1952), and Actors on Acting (1970).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Dame Judith Anderson |
Anderson, Dame Judith, 1898-1992, British actress, b. Adelaide, S. Australia, originally named Frances Margaret Anderson. She made her debut in Sydney in 1915 and by 1924 had become celebrated for her portrayals of classical and modern roles. In 1937 she made her London debut in Macbeth with Laurence Olivier. The title role in Medea by Robinson Jeffers, which she played in 1947 and 1982, was a personal triumph. Anderson's notable films were Rebecca (1940), Laura (1944), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). Her later films include A Man Called Horse (1970) and Star Trek III (1984). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1960.
| Quotes By: Judith Anderson |
Quotes:
"There is nothing enduring in life for a women except what she builds in a man's heart."
| Actor: Judith Anderson |
- Born: Feb 10, 1898 in Adelaide, Australia
- Died: Jan 03, 1992 in Santa Barbara, California
- Occupation: Actor
- Active: '40s-'60s, '80s
- Major Genres: Drama, Romance
- Career Highlights: Laura, Rebecca, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
- First Major Screen Credit: Blood Money (1933)
Biography
Australian-born Dame Judith Anderson (she was knighted in 1960) was for nearly 70 years one of the foremost Shakespearian actresses of the stage, playing everything from Lady MacBeth to Portia to Hamlet (yes, Hamlet). In films, she was Cruella DeVil--over and over again. Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but it is true that movies seldom took full advantage of Anderson's versatility and rich speaking voice, opting instead to confine her to unsympathetic roles on the basis of her hard, cruel facial features. She made her first film appearance as an incongrously sexy temptress in 1933's Blood Money; seven years later, she essayed her most famous screen role, the obsessed housekeeper Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca (1940). For the rest of her career, she was apparently regarded by Hollywood as an alternate for Gale Sondergaard in roles calling for refined truculence. She played the New York society dragon who "keeps" weak-willed Vincent Price in Laura (1944), the sinister wife of tormented farmer Edward G. Robinson in The Red House (1948), the imperious Queen Herodias in Salome (1953) and the wicked stepmother of Jerry Lewis in Cinderfella (1960). Some of Judith Anderson's later film roles allowed her a modicum of audience empathy, notably the aged Sioux Indian matriarch in A Man Called Horse (1970) and the High Priestess of the Vulcans in Star Trek IV: The Search for Spock (1984). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide| Filmography: Judith Anderson |
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| Dame Judith Anderson | |
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 Photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1934 |
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| Born | Frances Margaret Anderson-Anderson 10 February 1897 Adelaide, South Australia, Australia |
| Died | 3 January 1992 (aged 94) Santa Barbara, California, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) | Benjamin Harrison Lehmann (1937-1939) (divorced) Luther Greene (1946-1951) (divorced) |
Dame Judith Anderson, AC, DBE (10 February 1897 – 3 January 1992)[1] was an Australian actress of stage and screen, who was also nominated for a Grammy and an Oscar. She is generally regarded by theatre critics as the greatest classical actress produced by Australia.
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Early life
Anderson was born Frances Margaret Anderson-Anderson in Adelaide, South Australia to Jessie Margaret and James Anderson-Anderson.[2] She attended Norwood High School, and began acting in Australia before moving to New York in 1918.[3] She established herself as a dramatic actress of note making several appearances in the plays of William Shakespeare.
Stage
Anderson made her professional debut as Francee Anderson in 1915 at the age of 17. She played the role of Stephanie at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, in A Royal Divorce. Leading the company was the very popular Scottish actor, Julius Knight whom Anderson later credited with laying the foundations of her acting skills. In the company were some American actors who influenced Francee to try her luck in America. Francee went to California but was unsuccessful, so she tried New York, with equal lack of success. After a period of poverty and illness, she found work with the Emma Bunting Stock Company at the 14th Street Theatre in 1918-19. She toured with other stock companies until 1922 when she made her Broadway debut in On the Stairs using the name Frances Anderson. Twelve months later, she had changed her name to Judith and had her first triumph with the play Cobra co-starring Louis Calhern. She toured Australia in 1927 with three plays - Tea for Three, The Green Hat and Cobra.
By the early 1930s, she had established herself as one of the greatest theatre actresses of her era and she was a major star on Broadway throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. In 1931, she played the Unknown Woman in the American premiere of Luigi Pirandello's As You Desire Me, filmed the following year with Greta Garbo in the same role. This was followed by Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, Luigi Chiarelli's The Mask and the Face, with Humphrey Bogart, and Zoe Akins' The Old Maid from the novel by Edith Wharton, in the role later played on film by Bette Davis. In 1936, Anderson played Gertrude to John Gielgud's Hamlet in a production which also featured Lillian Gish as Ophelia.
In 1937, she joined the Old Vic Company in London and played Lady Macbeth opposite Laurence Olivier in a production by Michel Saint-Denis, at the Old Vic and the New Theatre. In 1941, she played Lady Macbeth again in New York opposite Maurice Evans in a production staged by Margaret Webster, a role she was to reprise later on television twice (the second version of 1960 was released to theatres in Europe as a feature film, and was the first Macbeth in color).
In 1942-1943, she played Olga in Chekhov's Three Sisters, in a production which also featured Katharine Cornell, Ruth Gordon, Edmund Gwenn, Dennis King, Alexander Knox and Kirk Douglas in his Broadway debut. The production was so illustrious, it made it to the cover of Time[1].
In 1947, she triumphed as Medea in a version of Euripides' tragedy, written by the poet Robinson Jeffers and produced by John Gielgud who also played Jason. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance. She toured in this role to Germany in 1951 and to France and Australia in 1955-56.
In 1953, she was directed by Charles Laughton in his own adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét's John Brown's Body with a cast also featuring Raymond Massey and Tyrone Power. In 1960, she played Madame Arkadina in Chekhov's The Seagull first at the Edinburgh Festival, and then at the Old Vic, with Tom Courtenay, Cyril Luckham and Tony Britton.
In 1970 she realised a long held ambition to play the role of Hamlet. She did this on a national tour of the United States and at New York's Carnegie Hall at the age of 73.
In 1982, she returned to Medea, this time playing the Nurse opposite Zoe Caldwell in the title role. Caldwell had appeared in a small role in the Australian tour of Medea in 1955-1956. Anderson was also nominated for the Tony for Best Supporting Actress.
Hollywood
In Hollywood, her striking and not conventionally attractive features meant that her opportunities were limited to supporting character actress work. She naturally preferred the stage in any event. However, she did make a handful of significant films. In particular, she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940). As the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, Judith Anderson was required to mentally torment the young bride, the "second Mrs. de Winter" (Joan Fontaine), even encouraging her to commit suicide; and taunt her husband (Laurence Olivier) with the memory of his first wife, the never-seen "Rebecca" of the title. "Mrs. Danvers" as conceived by Judith Anderson is widely considered one of the screen's most memorable and sexually ambiguous female villains. (The Oscar went to Jane Darwell, for The Grapes of Wrath.)
This led to several film appearances during the 1940s in such films as Lady Scarface (1941), Kings Row (1942), All Through the Night (1942), Otto Preminger's Laura (1944) with Gene Tierney, René Clair's And Then There Were None (1945), Ben Hecht's Specter of the Rose (1946), and Jean Renoir's The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946). She continued to act on the New York stage, playing the role of Lady Macbeth twice, and winning a Tony Award in 1948 for her historically acclaimed bravura performance in the title role of Medea.
Anderson holds the unusual distinction of winning two separate Emmy Awards for playing the same role - Lady Macbeth - in two separate productions of Macbeth.
Her stage and film work continued and by the 1950s she was also appearing in television productions. She played Herodias in Salome (1953), Memnet in Cecil B. de Mille's The Ten Commandments (1956), gave a memorable performance as Big Momma in the film of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Evil Stepmother in Cinderfella, and Buffalo Cow Head in A Man Called Horse (1970).
Anderson also recorded many spoken word record albums for Caedmon Audio in the 1950s through the 1970s, including her performance as Lady Macbeth (opposite Anthony Quayle). She received a Grammy nomination for her work on the Wuthering Heights recording.
Later career
In her later years she played two more prominent roles in productions that took her as far away from her Shakespearean origins as possible. In 1984 she appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as the Vulcan High Priestess "T'Lar" (at the age of 87), and the same year commenced a three-year stint as matriarch Minx Lockridge on the NBC serial Santa Barbara. She had professed to be a fan, but after signing the contract she bitterly complained about her lack of screen time. She was succeeded in the role by the American actress Janis Paige, who was a quarter of a century younger.
Personal life
Anderson loved the city of Santa Barbara, California and spent the remainder of her life there, dying of pneumonia in 1992, aged 94. Anderson was a friend of the poet Robinson Jeffers, who wrote the adaptation of Medea which she starred in, and she was a frequent visitor to his home "Tor House" in Carmel, California. She was survived by several nieces and nephews, both in America and Australia. Her ashes were given to either a friend or family.
Anderson was married and divorced twice, first to Benjamin Harrison Lehmann (1937-1939) and second to Luther Greene (1946-1951). Neither marriage, both of which occurred after she turned 40, produced children, but she did serve as godmother for friends' children. Despite her marriages, Anderson was subject to speculation about her sexuality throughout her career. In his biography Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King (2007), Foster Hirsch states matter-of-factly that Anderson was gay, extending this speculation into the current day.
Honours
Anderson was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1960 and thereafter was often billed as "Dame Judith Anderson".
On 10 June 1991, in the Queen's Birthday Honours, she was named a Companion in the Order of Australia (AC), "in recognition of service to the performing arts".[4]
Partial Filmography
- Rebecca (1940)
- Don't Bother to Knock (1961)
See also
References
- ^ "Judith Anderson Biography (1898-1992)". filmreference. http://www.filmreference.com/film/0/Judith-Anderson.html. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
- ^ "Judith Anderson Biography". Yahoo! Movies. 2008. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800017822/bio. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
- ^ Anne Heywood (7 May 2003). "Anderson, Frances Margaret (Judith) (1898-1992)". Australian Women's Archives Project. National Foundation for Australian Women. http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/IMP0006b.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
- ^ "Australian Honours: Anderson, Judith". It's an Honour. Australian Government. 2008. http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/honour_roll/search.cfm?aus_award_id=870331&search_type=quick&showInd=true. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
External links
- Judith Anderson at the Internet Broadway Database
- Judith Anderson at the Internet Movie Database
- Judith Anderson at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
- Eric Pace. "Dame Judith Anderson Dies at 93; An Actress of Powerful Portrayals." The New York Times. 4 January 1992. 27.
- Dame Judith Anderson papers, at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
- Dame Judith Anderson prompts, at the National Library of Australia.
- Judith Anderson at Find a Grave
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Mentioned in
- The Tower Beyond Tragedy (American Theater)
- Lady Scarface (1941 Mystery Film)
- Impure Thoughts (1986 Comedy Film)
- The Red House (1947 Thriller Film)
- The Borrowers (1973 Fantasy Film)
- Macbeth (1960 Film)
- In the Summer House (American Theater)
- Macbeth (American Theater)
- Medea (American Theater)
- Theatre Row (American Theater)
- Siobhan McKenna (Actor, Drama/Epic)
- George Schaefer (Director, Writer, Actor, Drama)
- Henry Brandon (Actor, Adventure/Western)
- Cinderfella (1960 Comedy Film)
