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Julie Haydon

 
American Theater Guide: Julie Haydon
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Haydon, Julie [née Donella Lightfoot Donaldson] (1910–94), actress. The shyly beautiful daughter of a publisher and editor and his musician wife, she was born in Oak Park, Illinois, but raised in California. Haydon's stage debut was as a maid in a 1929 West Coast revival of Mrs. Bumpstead‐Leigh, and she first appeared in New York in Bright Star (1935). She is best remembered for three later performances: Brigid, the maid caught in the feud between a canon and a schoolmaster, in Shadow and Substance (1938); Kitty Duval, the streetwalker who dreams of a better world, in The Time of Your Life (1939); and Laura, the crippled girl who lives for her collection of glass figurines, in The Glass Menagerie (1945). In 1955 she married the much‐older critic George Jean Nathan and after his death toured in a program of readings from his work.

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Actor: Julie Haydon
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  • Born: Jun 10, 1910 in Oak Park, Illinois
  • Died: Dec 24, 1994
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '30s
  • Major Genres: Drama
  • Career Highlights: The Scoundrel, Son of the Border, A Son Comes Home
  • First Major Screen Credit: The Conquerors (1932)

Biography

American actress Julie Haydon spent most of her career on Broadway appearing in such dramas as Tennessee Williams premiere production of The Glass Menagerie Paul Vincent Carroll's Shadow and Substance and William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Time of Your Life, but she also occasionally accepted leading roles in 1930s' Hollywood features. Haydon launched her stage career at age 19 and made her film debut in The Great Meadow (1931). She played a few more supporting roles before signing with RKO in 1932. Her first major role was in The Conquerors. Though Haydon appeared in many films during the '30s, her career was generally undistinguished, but for her notable performance in The Scoundrel in 1935. Following her work in A Family Affair, the beginning of the Andy Hardy series, Haydon retired from films to pursue a more successful Broadway career. Haydon was married to Broadway critic George Jean Nathan from 1955. He died in 1958, and afterward Haydon retired from Broadway and became a drama coach. She occasionally appeared in college and local theater productions. Haydon also edited two posthumous collections of her husband's writing and penned a book, Every Dog Has Its Day, and wrote magazine articles about the actors with whom she had worked. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Wikipedia: Julie Haydon
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Julie Haydon

publicity photo c.1937
Born Donatella Donaldson
June 10, 1910(1910-06-10)
Oak Grove, Illinois
Died December 24, 1994 (aged 84)
La Crosse, Wisconsin
Occupation actress
Years active 1931-1963
Spouse(s) George Jean Nathan
(1955-1958)

Julie Haydon (June 10, 1910 – December 24, 1994) was an American actress who performed on Broadway and in films.

Contents

Early career and films

Born Donella Donaldson in Oak Grove, Illinois, Haydon began her acting career when she was 19, touring with Minnie Maddern Fiske in Mrs. Bumstead Leigh. Within two years, she played Ophelia in a production of Hamlet at the Hollywood Playhouse. Shortly after, she began appearing in films, in 1931. Her first film, in which she was billed under her birth name, was The Great Meadow, a Johnny Mack Brown Western drama made by MGM. In 1932, she signed with RKO,[1] and her first major role came that year in The Conquerors, directed by William Wellman[2] Her most notable performance[1] came in 1935's The Scoundrel playing opposite Noel Coward,[3] but, despite a new contract with MGM[4], only a few more films were to come in her short career, including A Family Affair (1937), the initial movie in the Andy Hardy series.

Haydon retired from films in 1937.[1][5]

Theatre

Haydon debuted on Broadway in 1935[6] in Bright Star by Philip Barry, which ran for only seven performances before closing.[7] Her next Broadway production, Shadow and Substance by Paul Vincent Carroll, in which she played a saintly maid, was more successful, running for 9 months in 1938.[8] Next, in 1939, she created the role of the prostitute, Kitty Duval, in William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Time of Your Life.[9] Haydon was also the original Laura Wingfield in the first production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie in 1945.[10] Her final appearance on Broadway came in 1947's Our Lan'.[11]

Television

Beginning in 1949, Haydon began making appearances on television. She performed in episodes of Kraft Television Theater (1949), Armstrong Circle Theater (1950), The United States Steel Hour (1954), and Robert Montgomery Presents (1954).[12]

Later career

In 1955, Haydon married the drama critic George Jean Nathan, who died in 1958. They had no children and she never remarried. Following his death Haydon worked as a drama coach, and appeared onstage in community theater and college productions. She delivered lectures taken from books written by Nathan, two collections of which Haydon edited. She also wrote occasional magazine articles about the actors she had worked with in her career.[1]

Haydon recorded two albums for Folkways Records in the early 1960s, George Jean Nathan's The New American Credo (1962) and Colette's Music Hall (L'Envers du Music-Hall): By Colette (1963).

In 1962 the actress left New York and returned to the Midwest. For a decade she was actress in residence at the College of St. Teresa in Winona, Minnesota. She played the role of the mother in revivals of The Glass Menagerie, and, in 1980, returned to New York to perform the role off-off-Broadway.

The grave of Julie Haydon in Gate of Heaven Cemetery

Death

Julie Haydon died in La Crosse, Wisconsin of cancer, aged 84. She was buried next to her husband in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York.

The Nathan-Haydon papers were donated to the La Crosse Public Library archives.

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Brennan, Sandra Biography (All Movie)
  2. ^ The Conquerors at the Internet Movie Database
  3. ^ The Scoundrel at the Internet Movie Database
  4. ^ JAMD Julie Haydon
  5. ^ Some have held that it was Haydon and not Fay Wray who provided the heroine's bone-chilling screams in 1933's King Kong, but this claim is disputed.
  6. ^ Julie Haydon at the Internet Broadway Database
  7. ^ Bright Star at the Internet Broadway Database
  8. ^ Shadow and Substance at the Internet Broadway Database
  9. ^ The Time of Your Life at the Internet Broadway Database
  10. ^ The Glass Menagerie at the Internet Broadway Database
  11. ^ Our Lan' at the Internet Broadway Database
  12. ^ Julie Haydon at the Internet Movie Database

Sources

  • New York Times, Julie Haydon Is Dead At 84; A Star in Glass Menagerie, December 29, 1994, Page B8.

External links

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American Theater Guide. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Actor. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Julie Haydon".  Read more