Gertrude Flynn


Gertrude Flynn was an American stage, film and television actress. She was married to Asa Bordages, a feature writer for the New York World-Telegram and playwright known for the 1941 play Brooklyn USA.

Career

Flynn's film and television career began in 1954 in The Barefoot Contessa as "Lulu McGee". She played "Maggie Blake" in the Sherlock Holmes episode, "The Case of the Belligerent Ghost".
She made four guest appearances on Perry Mason in the early 1960s, including as "Agatha Culpepper" in "The Case of the Floating Stones", as Mrs. Nichols in "The Case of the Irate Inventor" in 1960, and as Sylvia Lambert in the 1963 episode "The Case of the Bluffing Blast".
Her final appearance was in 1966 in the "Case of the Golfer's Gambit" as Rolasie Hedrick. During the 1965–66 season of the soap opera Days of Our Lives she made five appearances as Anna Sawyer. She made her final television appearances in 1987 in Outlaws.

Theater

Flynn performed on Broadway beginning in the late 1920s. She appeared on stage through 1952 in the following productions, the most successful of which ran for three months:The Unsophisticates as PhyllisPenal Law 2010 as Lucy Van DamGasoline Gypsies as Ruth WarrenThree Times the Hour as Hildah LoveringThe Moon in the Yellow River as BlanaidAmerican Dream as Celia, AmarylilsMan Bites Dog as Helen LeeBiography as Slade KinnicottJigsaw as JulieA Sleeping Clergyman as Cousin MinnieMother Lode as Julia MusetteNoah as AdaOne Good Year as AnneThe Puritan as KittyMarching Song as Rose GrahamRomantic Mr. Dickens as Dora Spenlow The Distant City as Edna ScottThe Grass Harp as The Baker's Wife
Despite the brief length of the stage productions, Flynn garnered some good reviews. The New York Times noted her appearance in the very short-lived 1940 production of Romantic Mr. Dickens, a drama about the romances of Charles Dickens, and wrote that she "fit smoothly into this rather unorthodox picture of a literary tradition." After beginning her work in film and television, Flynn continued work in theater, making appearances in such as Summer Voices at the Circle Theater in Los Angeles as late as 1977.
Of her 1965 performance in the West Coast Repertory Company's troubled production of Long Day's Journey Into Night, the Los Angeles Times wrote "The one saving grace of the evening was the fine performance by Gertrude Flynn of Mary Tyrone".

Film and television

Flynn appeared in I Want To Live, Invitation to a Gunfighter and Rome Adventure. She guest starred on such television series as The Millionaire, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Loretta Young Show, Maverick, Have Gun - Will Travel, Dr Kildare, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, and Hill Street Blues. Flynn appeared in the classic 1961 Twilight Zone episode, "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?". She played as Rose Kramer.

Partial filmography

Film

The Barefoot Contessa as Lulu McGeeWar and Peace as Mariya PeronskayaDifendo il mio amore Boy on a Dolphin as Miss DillThe Love Specialist I Want to Live! as San Quentin MatronA Summer Place as Mrs. Carter, Helen's Mother Parrish as Miss Daly Rome Adventure as Mrs. RiggsThe Thrill of It All as Celine Invitation to a Gunfighter as Hannah GuthrieInside Daisy Clover as Daisy's Nurse Valley of the Dolls as Ladies' Room Attendant Blackbeard's Ghost as Mrs. Starkey Funny Girl as Mrs. O'MalleyBad Manners as Mother Celestina

Television

Sherlock Holmes as Maggie BlakeConrad Nagel Theater Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents as MaryPeter Gunn as Mrs. 'J'Markham as LandladyThe Lawless Years as Jane MorrisonThe Millionaire as Martha ChambersAlfred Hitchcock Presents