1. Anna Lee was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith in Ightham, Kent, the daughter of Bertram Thomas Winnifrith, a headmaster and Anglican rector, and his second wife, Edith Maude Digby-Roper.
21 Facts About Anna Lee
1. 2.
Anna Lee's father supported his daughter in her desire to become an actress.
3.
Anna Lee was the goddaughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and lifelong friend of his daughter, Dame Jean Conan Doyle.
4.
Anna Lee trained at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art at the Royal Albert Hall, and made her debut with a bit part in His Lordship, when she was 19.
5.
Anna Lee played a number of minor, often uncredited, roles in films during the early 1930s.
6.
Anna Lee was known for her roles in films set amongst the wealthy, particularly in Chelsea Life, in which she starred with Louis Hayward.
7.
In 1934, Anna Lee signed a contract with Gainsborough Pictures, the biggest British production company of the era.
8.
Anna Lee played leading lady roles in a variety of different genres at Gainsborough, including the comedy-thriller The Camels Are Coming, the drama The Passing of the Third Floor Back, the horror film The Man Who Changed His Mind and the war film OHMS.
9.
Anna Lee appeared in the 1935 Jessie Matthews musical First a Girl as the aristocratic playgirl and other woman, Princess Miranoff.
10.
In 1933, Anna Lee met the director Robert Stevenson, who became her first husband, while shooting The Camels Are Coming on location in Egypt.
11.
Anna Lee played a 19th-century Irish music hall performer who falls in love with an aristocrat in the comedy Young Man's Fancy and a journalist who helps heroes thwart a foreign enemy's plot against Britain in The Four Just Men.
12.
Anna Lee remained supportive of the British war effort during World War II, and in 1943 appeared alongside other British actors in Forever and a Day, a film made to raise money for British charities.
13.
Anna Lee co-starred with John Wayne and John Carroll in Flying Tigers.
14.
Anna Lee made frequent appearances on television anthology series in the 1940s and 1950s, including Robert Montgomery Presents, The Ford Theatre Hour, Kraft Television Theatre, Armstrong Circle Theatre and Wagon Train.
15.
Anna Lee made a guest appearance on Perry Mason as Crystal Durham in "The Case of the Unsuitable Uncle".
16.
Anna Lee had a small role as Sister Margaretta in The Sound of Music, one of the two nuns who thwarted the Nazis by removing car engine parts, allowing the Von Trapps to escape.
17.
Lila was a contract role until 2003, when Anna Lee was taken off contract and dropped to recurring status by Jill Farren Phelps, a move widely protested in the soap world.
18.
Anna Lee married director Robert Stevenson, in 1933 and moved to Hollywood in 1939.
19.
Anna Lee met her second husband, George Stafford, as the pilot of the plane on her USO tour during the Second World War.
20.
Anna Lee was a staunch Conservative and stated that her views coincided with those of Sir Winston Churchill.
21.
On 16 July 2004, General Hospital aired a tribute to Anna Lee by holding a memorial service for Lila Quartermaine.