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Dame Judith Anderson, AC DBE (February 10, 1897–January 3, 1992), born Frances Margaret Anderson-Anderson, was an Tony award and Emmy winning stage and film actress who was also nominated for a Grammy and an Oscar.

Early life

Born in Adelaide, South Australia, Anderson began acting in Australia before moving to New York in 1918. She established herself as a dramatic actress of note making several appearances in the plays of William Shakespeare.

Career

Anderson began her career on the American stage in the mid 1920s and had her first triumph in 1926 with the play Cobra. By the early 1930's 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 Hollywood, her striking, 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 "2nd 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, in The Grapes of Wrath.)

This led to several film appearances during the 1940s in such films as Kings Row (1943), Laura (1944), And Then There Were None (film) (1945), and The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946). She continued returning to 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.

Many years later she would appear in Medea with fellow Australian-born actress, Zoe Caldwell, in the title role, as the supporting character of the "Nurse". She 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 gave memorable performances as Herodias in Salome (1953), 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 1950's through the 1970's. She received a Grammy nomination for her work on the Wuthering Heights recording.

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 (at the age of 87), and the same year commenced a three-year stint as matriarch Minx Lockridge on the popular soap opera 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.

Private life

She also loved the city of Santa Barbara, California and spent the remainder of her life there, dying of pneumonia in 1992 at the age of 95. She was survived by several nieces and nephews, both in America and Australia.

Anderson was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1960 and thereafter was often billed as "Dame Judith Anderson".

References

• Eric Pace. "Dame Judith Anderson Dies at 93; An Actress of Powerful Portrayals." The New York Times. January 4, 1992. 27.

External links

• Dame Judith Anderson papers, at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.

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