Judith Anderson
Dame Frances Margaret Anderson, known professionally as Judith Anderson, was an Australian actress who had a successful career in stage, film, and television.
A well-known stage actress in her era, she won two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award, and was also nominated for a Grammy Award and an Academy Award.
Early life
Frances Margaret Anderson was born in 1897 in Adelaide, South Australia, the youngest of four children born to Jessie Margaret, a former nurse, and Scottish-born James Anderson Anderson, a sharebroker and pioneering prospector.She attended a private school, Norwood, where her education ended before graduation.
Career
Early acting
She made her professional debut in 1915, playing Stephanie at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, in A Royal Divorce. Leading the company was Scottish actor Julius Knight, whom she later credited with laying the foundations of her acting skills. She appeared alongside him in adaptations of The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Three Musketeers, Monsieur Beacauire, and David Garrick. In 1917, she toured New Zealand.Early years in America
Anderson was ambitious and wanted to leave Australia. Most local actors went to London, but the war made this difficult, so she decided on the U.S. She travelled to California, but was unsuccessful for four months, then moved to New York, with an equal lack of success.After a period of poverty and illness, she found work with the Emma Bunting Stock Company at the Fourteenth Street Theatre in 1918–19. She then toured with other stock companies.
Broadway and film
She made her Broadway debut in Up the Stairs followed by The Crooked Square, and she went to Chicago with Patches. She appeared in Peter Weston, which only had a short run.One year later, she had changed her acting forename to Judith and had her first triumph with the play Cobra co-starring Louis Calhern, which ran for 35 performances. Anderson then went on to The Dove, which went on for 101 performances and really established her on Broadway.
She toured Australia in 1927 with three plays: Tea for Three, The Green Hat, and Cobra. Back on Broadway, she was in Behold the Bridegroom by George Kelly, and had the lead role in Anna. She replaced Lynn Fontanne during the successful run of Strange Interlude.
Anderson made her film debut in a short for Warner Bros., "Madame of the Jury". She made her feature-film debut with a role in Blood Money.
In 1931, she played the Unknown Woman in the American premiere of Pirandello's As You Desire Me, which ran for 142 performances. She was in a short-lived revival of Mourning Becomes Electra, then did Firebird, Conquest, The Drums Begin, and The Mask and the Face. Anderson then focused on Broadway with Come of Age and Divided By Three.
Broadway star
She had a big hit with the lead in Zoe Akins' The Old Maid from the novel by Edith Wharton, in the role later played on film by Miriam Hopkins. It ran for 305 performances.In 1936, Anderson played Gertrude to John Gielgud's Hamlet in a production that 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.
She returned to Broadway with Family Portrait, which she adored, but only it had a short run. She later toured in the show.
''Rebecca''
Anderson then received a career boost when she was cast in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. As the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, she was required to mentally torment the young bride, the "second Mrs. de Winter", even encouraging her to commit suicide, and to taunt her husband with the memory of his first wife, the never-seen "Rebecca" of the title. The film was a huge critical and commercial success, and Anderson was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 13th Academy Awards.1940s
Anderson was second billed in an Eddie Cantor comedy, Forty Little Mothers at MGM. She stayed at that studio for Free and Easy, then went over to RKO to play the title role in Lady Scarface.In 1941, she played Lady Macbeth again in New York City opposite Maurice Evans in a production staged by Margaret Webster, a role she was to reprise with Evans on television, firstly in 1954 and then again in 1960. This ran for 131 performances.
Anderson made her appearance in Robinson Jeffers' The Tower Beyond Tragedy at the outdoor Forest Theater in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, on July 2–5, 1941. This was the first time it played in a professional manner. John Burr's Carmel Pine Cone review admired Anderson's performance and proclaimed the production was “an unqualified success." Director Charles O'Neal persuaded Anderson to appear in both The Tower Beyond Tragedy and the Family Portrait.
She returned to films to make four movies at Warner Bros.: All Through the Night and Kings Row, and Edge of Darkness and Stage Door Canteen.
In 1942–43, on stage she played Olga in Chekhov's Three Sisters, in a production, which also featured Katharine Cornell, Ruth Gordon, Edmund Gwenn, Dennis King, and Alexander Knox. It ran for 123 performances. The production was so illustrious, it was featured on the cover of Time.
Anderson returned to Hollywood to appear in Laura. She briefly returned to Australia to tour American army camps. She was back in Hollywood to appear in And Then There Were None, The Diary of a Chambermaid, and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. Anderson had rare top billing in Specter of the Rose, written and directed by Ben Hecht. She returned to support roles for Pursued, The Red House, and Tycoon.
''Medea''
In 1947, she triumphed as Medea in a version of Euripides' eponymous tragedy, written by poet Robinson Jeffers and produced by John Gielgud, who played Jason. She was a friend of Jeffers and a frequent visitor to his home Tor House in Carmel. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance. The show ran for 214 performances. Anderson then toured throughout the country with it.1950s
On the big screen, Anderson played a golddigger in Anthony Mann's Western The Furies and made her TV debut in a 1951 adaptation of The Silver Cord for Pulitzer Prize Playhouse. She guest-starred on TV shows such as The Billy Rose Show and Somerset Maugham TV Theatre.She returned to Broadway with The Tower Beyond Tragedy by Jeffers, and toured Medea in German in 1951. She was in a New York revival of Come of Age in 1952. She was Herodias in Salome and played in Black Chiffon on The Motorola Television Hour.
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. Then, she did In the Summer House on Broadway.
On television, she was in Macbeth with Maurice Evans, for which she won an Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Single Performance, and The Elgin Hour. She was in several episodes of The Star and the Story and an episode of Climax! , as well as playing Memnet in Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments.
In 1955, she toured Australia with Medea. In 1956, she was in a production of Caesar and Cleopatra for Producers' Showcase.
Anderson appeared in a 1958 adaptation of The Bridge of San Luis Rey for The DuPont Show of the Month and played the memorable role of Big Mama, alongside Burl Ives as Big Daddy, in the screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams's play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She followed it with a return to Broadway, in the short-lived Comes a Day by Speed Lampkin. "I don't profess to know much about films", she said around this time. "I seldom see one."
Anderson reprised her performance as Medea for TV in 1959; in the same year, she appeared in a small-screen adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence with Laurence Olivier. She had a role in the Wagon Train episode "The Felizia Kingdom Story", and appeared in several episodes of Playhouse 90 and one of Our American Heritage.
1960s
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.That year she also performed in Cradle Song and Macbeth for TV. She won The Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, for once again playing Lady MacBeth. She had support roles in Cinderfella and Why Bother to Knock.
In 1961, she toured an evening in which she performed Macbeth, Medea and Tower. Anderson was in The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre for TV.
In 1966, she did a performance on stage in Elizabeth the Queen, which received poor reviews.
She received acclaim for her lead performance in a TV version of Elizabeth the Queen. She followed it with The File on Devlin and A Man Called Horse. The latter was her first feature since Why Bother to Knock.
In 1970, she realised a long-held ambition to play the title role of Hamlet on a national tour of the United States and at New York City's Carnegie Hall.