1. Dame Frances Margaret Anderson, known professionally as Judith Anderson, was an Australian actress who had a successful career in stage, film, and television.
48 Facts About Judith Anderson
1. 2.
Judith Anderson is considered one of the 20th century's greatest classical stage actors.
3.
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.
4.
Judith Anderson attended a private school, Norwood, where her education ended before graduation.
5.
Judith Anderson made her professional debut in 1915, playing Stephanie at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, in A Royal Divorce.
6.
Judith Anderson appeared alongside him in adaptations of The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Three Musketeers, Monsieur Beacauire, and David Garrick.
7.
Judith Anderson made her Broadway debut in Up the Stairs followed by The Crooked Square, and she went to Chicago with Patches.
8.
Judith Anderson appeared in Peter Weston, which only had a short run.
9.
One year later, she had changed her acting forename to Judith Anderson and had her first triumph with the play Cobra co-starring Louis Calhern, which ran for 35 performances.
10.
Judith Anderson then went on to The Dove, which went on for 101 performances and really established her on Broadway.
11.
Judith Anderson toured Australia in 1927 with three plays: Tea for Three, The Green Hat, and Cobra.
12.
Judith Anderson replaced Lynn Fontanne during the successful run of Strange Interlude.
13.
Judith Anderson made her film debut in a short for Warner Bros.
14.
Judith Anderson made her feature-film debut with a role in Blood Money.
15.
Judith Anderson then focused on Broadway with Come of Age and Divided By Three.
16.
Judith Anderson 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.
17.
In 1936, Judith Anderson played Gertrude to John Gielgud's Hamlet in a production that featured Lillian Gish as Ophelia.
18.
Judith Anderson returned to Broadway with Family Portrait, which she adored, but only it had a short run.
19.
Judith Anderson then received a career boost when she was cast in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca.
20.
The film was a huge critical and commercial success, and Judith Anderson was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 13th Academy Awards.
21.
Judith Anderson was second billed in an Eddie Cantor comedy, Forty Little Mothers at MGM.
22.
Judith Anderson stayed at that studio for Free and Easy, then went over to RKO to play the title role in Lady Scarface.
23.
Judith Anderson returned to films to make four movies at Warner Bros.
24.
Judith Anderson briefly returned to Australia to tour American army camps.
25.
Judith Anderson was back in Hollywood to appear in And Then There Were None, The Diary of a Chambermaid, and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.
26.
Judith Anderson had rare top billing in Specter of the Rose, written and directed by Ben Hecht.
27.
Judith Anderson returned to support roles for Pursued, The Red House, and Tycoon.
28.
Judith Anderson was a friend of Jeffers and a frequent visitor to his home Tor House in Carmel.
29.
Judith Anderson won the Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance.
30.
Judith Anderson guest-starred on TV shows such as The Billy Rose Show and Somerset Maugham TV Theatre.
31.
Judith Anderson returned to Broadway with The Tower Beyond Tragedy by Jeffers, and toured Medea in German in 1951.
32.
Judith Anderson was in a New York revival of Come of Age in 1952.
33.
Judith Anderson was Herodias in Salome and played in Black Chiffon on The Motorola Television Hour.
34.
Judith 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.
35.
Judith Anderson followed it with a return to Broadway, in the short-lived Comes a Day by Speed Lampkin.
36.
Judith 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.
37.
Judith Anderson 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.
38.
Judith Anderson won The Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, for playing Lady MacBeth.
39.
Judith Anderson had support roles in Cinderfella and Why Bother to Knock.
40.
Judith Anderson was in The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre for TV.
41.
Judith Anderson received acclaim for her lead performance in a TV version of Elizabeth the Queen.
42.
Judith Anderson followed it with The File on Devlin and A Man Called Horse.
43.
Judith Anderson recorded many spoken-word record albums for Caedmon Audio from the 1950s to the 1970s, including scenes from Macbeth with Maurice Judith Anderson, an adaption of Medea, Robert Louis Stevenson verses, and readings from the Bible.
44.
Judith Anderson received a Grammy nomination for her work on the Wuthering Heights recording.
45.
Judith Anderson guest-starred in Matlock Police and was in the film Inn of the Damned.
46.
Judith Anderson was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play.
47.
Judith Anderson was married twice and declared that "neither experience was a jolly holiday":.
48.
Judith Anderson spent much of her life in Santa Barbara, California, where she died of pneumonia in 1992, aged 94.