82 Facts About Katharine Cornell

Katharine Cornell was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer.

Katharine Cornell was born in Berlin to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.

Katharine Cornell is noted for her major Broadway roles in serious dramas, often directed by her husband, Guthrie McClintic.

Katharine Cornell is regarded as one of the great actresses of the American theatre.

Katharine Cornell was noted for spurning screen roles, unlike other actresses of her day.

Katharine Cornell appeared in only one Hollywood film, the World War II morale booster Stage Door Canteen, in which she played herself.

Katharine Cornell did appear in television adaptations of The Barretts of Wimpole Street and Robert E Sherwood's There Shall Be No Night.

Katharine Cornell narrated the documentary Helen Keller in Her Story, which won an Oscar.

Primarily regarded as a tragedienne, Katharine Cornell was admired for her refined, romantic presence.

Katharine Cornell died on June 9,1974, in Tisbury, Massachusetts, aged 81, and is buried at Tisbury Village Cemetery, Tisbury, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Katharine Cornell played at the Buffalo Studio Club parlor theater, located at 508 Franklin Street.

Katharine Cornell loved athletics and was a runner-up for city championship at tennis, and an amateur swimming champion.

Katharine Cornell attended the University of Buffalo.

In 1915, Katharine Cornell's mother died, leaving her enough money to be independent.

Katharine Cornell joined various theater companies, including the Bonstelle, that toured around the East Coast.

Katharine Cornell made her Broadway debut in the play Nice People by Rachel Crothers, in a small part alongside Tallulah Bankhead.

Katharine Cornell married McClintic on September 8,1921, in her aunt's summer home in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada.

Katharine Cornell's family had often summered there among other wealthy Americans.

Katharine Cornell was a member of the "sewing circles" in New York, and had relationships with Nancy Hamilton, Tallulah Bankhead, Mercedes de Acosta, and others.

Katharine Cornell made Candida the core of the play, a view adopted by directors and critics ever since.

Katharine Cornell starred in 1927 in The Letter, by W Somerset Maugham, as Leslie Crosbie, a woman who kills her lover.

In 1928, Katharine Cornell played the lead role of the countess Ellen Olenska in a dramatized version of Edith Wharton's novel The Age of Innocence.

Katharine Cornell is perhaps best known in her role as poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Rudolf Besier's play The Barretts of Wimpole Street.

Katharine Cornell is then informed that Elizabeth has taken the dog with her.

For every single performance that Katharine Cornell gave as Elizabeth Barrett, she wore this jewelry in the last act, when she leaves the family home for the last time.

Katharine Cornell Hepburn was selected for the part of Henrietta, but since she was going to play in a summer stock company a few months later, she could not be signed to a contract.

Katharine Cornell bought The Barretts of Wimpole Street for McClintic in December 1930.

Katharine Cornell's acting is quite as remarkable for the carefulness of its design as for the fire of her presence.

Katharine Cornell refused to act in movies because she had seen audiences laugh at the acting of old movies and did not want that to happen to her.

Additionally, Katharine Cornell had apparently written to film director George Cukor, suggesting that she would consider a film if he would direct her.

Katharine Cornell turned down many movie roles that earned Academy Awards wins and nominations for the actresses who did play those parts, from Olan in The Good Earth, to Pilar in For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Katharine Cornell bought some soft white nun's veiling, from which she fashioned a flowing robe shortly before curtain time.

Katharine Cornell toured to such cities as Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, San Antonio, New Orleans, Houston, Savannah, and up the east coast to New England.

Katharine Cornell decided that the audience could watch the sets for "Barretts" be unpacked and set up, and so raised the curtain.

For years afterward, every Christmas, Woollcott told the story of the Seattle audience that waited until 1 am to see Katharine Cornell "emerge from the flood" and give the performance of her life.

Also, he coached Katharine Cornell to read for meaning, sense and emotion, in place of the poetics of iambic pentameter.

Katharine Cornell is beautiful to look at and her performance is enkindled by the spiritual exaltation of a transcendent heroine.

Katharine Cornell had played his role 709 times, and traveled over 25,000 miles on tours, never getting drunk or arriving late.

Immediately after that closed, Cornell starred in her second comedy, No Time for Comedy by S N Behrman.

Katharine Cornell next played in Shaw's play, The Doctor's Dilemma, and Raymond Massey starred opposite her.

Katharine Cornell knew everything that was going on and she made all the decisions.

Shortly after the US entered World War II, Katharine Cornell decided upon a revival of Candida to benefit the Army Emergency Fund and the Navy Relief Society.

Katharine Cornell was able to convince all actors, Shaw, the theater hands and the Schubert organization to donate their labor, services and venue so that almost all proceeds went directly to the fund.

Judith Anderson played Olga, Gertrude Musgrove was selected for Irina, while Katharine Cornell had the role of Masha.

Katharine Cornell is said to have played Masha with a nobility of spirit without ostentation, and that she found the wit in her role.

Katharine Cornell has made the yearning soul as good box office as the fiery body.

Katharine Cornell has made an invalid lady on a couch the essence of glamor.

Katharine Cornell has turned Shakespeare and Shaw into rousing hits.

Katharine Cornell was featured for the second time on the cover of Time magazine on December 21,1942, with Judith Anderson and Ruth Gordon.

Katharine Cornell donated time to work at the Canteen cleaning tables.

General George C Marshall asked Cornell to do a play to entertain the troops in Europe.

Katharine Cornell decided to take The Barretts of Wimpole Street to the troops in Europe as a touring production with the USO and the Special Services Division.

Katharine Cornell prepared Blithe Spirit, but nonetheless insisted upon Barretts, saying that if she was going to entertain the soldiers, she must take them her very best, and her very best was Barretts.

Katharine Cornell eventually played for six months, from August 1944 to January 1945, throughout Italy, including stops in Rome, Florence and Siena.

Now aged 51, Katharine Cornell was then told by the Army that she had done enough for the effort and to remain in Paris.

Katharine Cornell's response was to be taken as close to the front as possible.

Katharine Cornell performed in Maastricht and Heerlen in the Netherlands, just eight miles from the front.

Long after the tour was finished, Katharine Cornell continued to receive letters, not just from servicemen who had seen the show, but from wives, mothers and even school teachers from the home front.

Katharine Cornell revived Candida for the fifth and last time in April 1946, with Marlon Brando playing the role of the young Marchbanks.

Whereas Katharine Cornell represented an older, exuberant romantic style, Brando heralded the newer style of Method Acting, with its reliance upon psychological insights and personal experience.

In 1946, Katharine Cornell chose Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, which opened at the Hanna Theater in Cleveland, a difficult role for which she was ideally suited.

Katharine Cornell followed that with Jean Anouilh's adaptation of the Greek tragedy Antigone.

In 1951, Katharine Cornell played the lead in Somerset Maugham's comedy, The Constant Wife for a summer festival in Colorado.

In 1953, Katharine Cornell found a suitable role in The Prescott Proposals, about a United States Delegate to the United Nations.

Katharine Cornell continued with several other forgettable plays, and her last production was Dear Liar by Jerome Kilty, which opened and closed in 1960.

Katharine Cornell did find time in 1954 to be narrator for the film The Unconquered, the life story of her friend Helen Keller.

Katharine Cornell made her radio debut May 6,1951, on Theatre Guild on the Air.

Katharine Cornell sold her residences and bought a house on East 51st Street in Manhattan, next door to Brian Aherne and down the street from Margalo Gillmore.

Katharine Cornell bought an old building on Martha's Vineyard known as The Barn and made additions to it, and restored the 300-year-old Association Hall on the island.

Katharine Cornell died of pneumonia on June 9,1974 at The Barn in Tisbury, Massachusetts.

Katharine Cornell served on the Board of Directors of The Rehearsal Club.

Katharine Cornell was one of the most respected, versatile stage actresses of the early-mid 20th century, moving easily from comedy to melodrama, and from classics to contemporary plays.

Katharine Cornell was a particularly accomplished interpreter of romantic and character roles.

The Katharine Cornell Theater is a popular venue for plays, music, movies and more.

Smith College has a collection of Katharine Cornell's papers dating from 1938 to 1960, plus additional materials in the papers of Nancy Hamilton.

Katharine Cornell donated some of her costumes designed by famed Russian fashion designer Valentina to the Museum of the City of New York.

Katharine Cornell was one of three actresses awarded in the first Tony Awards ; her award was received for her performance in Antony and Cleopatra.

Katharine Cornell was honored with the first New York Drama League Award in 1935 for her performance as Juliet.

Katharine Cornell was awarded a medal "for good speech on the stage" by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received a citation as Woman of the Year by the American Friends of the Hebrew University in 1959.

Katharine Cornell was one of the original members elected into the American Theatre Hall of Fame upon its establishment in 1972.

The State University of New York at Buffalo holds a portrait of Katharine Cornell painted by surrealist Salvador Dali dated 1951.

The Katharine Cornell Foundation was funded with profits from Barretts.