Evelyn Varden


Evelyn Varden was an American character actress.

Stage

Born in Adair, Oklahoma, Varden was Cherokee and is listed on the Dawes Rolls as 1/32nd Cherokee by Blood. She began her career as a teenager in the first decade of the 20th century, acting with her aunts in a troupe that toured the western United States. She was on Broadway by age sixteen in 1910. It was not until the 1930s and into her forties that her stage career took off in the theater, notably playing Mrs. Gibbs, the small town matron who dreams of Paris, in the original production of Our Town.
Varden's stage work mainly consisted of showy supporting roles although she did star in the ill-fated Return Engagement by Lawrence Riley. The 1950 melodrama Hilda Crane was a personal success for Varden although the play itself ran only two months. The following year she played the Nurse in a production of Romeo and Juliet starring Olivia de Havilland. Her final Broadway appearance in The Bad Seed was one of her acclaimed performances.

Radio and television

Varden occasionally appeared on radio from the early 1940s and well into the 1950s. She starred in radio productions of Hay Fever, The Silver Cord, and The Glass Menagerie among several other programs. She would later appear in a number of television productions during the 1950s, including an adaptation of Cradle Song, opposite Judith Anderson.

Film

Varden did not make her first film appearance until 1949 at age 56 with the film Pinky. She then went on to make over a dozen more films, including recreating her stage roles in the motion picture adaptations of Hilda Crane and The Bad Seed.
Varden's best-known motion picture performance was as the gregarious storekeeper Icey Spoon in the 1955 film classic, The Night of the Hunter, based on the like-named novel. That performance garnered considerable acclaim, not least from the book's author, Davis Grubb. "Varden is almost my favorite person in the whole film. I thought she was perfect as Icey Spoon. She put things into that characterization that she should have gotten extra for. Because she got across the very subtle way of middle-aged women who are promoting the marriage of a younger woman to an attractive male, they themselves are very sexually excited by the whole thing. It's a sixty-year-old yenta's way of getting off. She did more with a little sigh..."
Varden's career was still going strong at the time of her death. Immediately prior to taking ill in January, Varden was appearing in London, earning kudos for her portrayal of an American mother in Lesley Storm's comedy, Roar Like a Dove. Just weeks before her death, that turn earned Varden the award for Best Supporting Performance for 1957/1958, as judged by drama critics of the National British press.

Personal life

Varden was married twice: first to fellow thespian Charles Pearce Coleman, from 1914 until their divorce in 1921, and then, from 1921 until her death, to Baltimore-based hotel operator William J. Quinn.

Death

Varden died on July 11, 1958, at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in Manhattan, New York City, at the age of 65.

Filmography

Pinky as Melba WooleyWhen Willie Comes Marching Home as Mrs. Gertrude KluggsCheaper by the Dozen as School Principal Stella as Flora Stella's motherElopement as Millie ReaganFinders Keepers as Ma KippsPhone Call from a Stranger as Sally CarrThe Student Prince as QueenAthena as Grandma Salome MulvainDésirée as MarieThe Night of the Hunter as Icey SpoonAlfred Hitchcock Presents as Cordelia WellesHilda Crane as Mrs. BurnsCradle Song as The VicaressThe Bad Seed as Monica BreedloveTen Thousand Bedrooms as Countess Alzani

Broadway appearances

The Nest Egg Seven Days' Leave Allegiance The Honor of the Family Alley Cat A Woman of the Soil Life's Too Short Weep for the Virgins Russet Mantle Prelude to Exile Now You've Done It To Quito and Back Our Town Family Portrait Ladies and Gentlemen Grey Farm Return Engagement The Lady Who Came to Stay Candle in the Wind The Family Our Town Dream Girl Present Laughter She Stoops to Conquer Hilda Crane Romeo and Juliet A Date With April
  • ''The Bad Seed''