Edith Evans

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Dame Edith Mary Evans DBE (8 February 1888–14 October 1976) was a highly regarded English actress.

Born in London, her stage appearances included numerous works by Shakespeare, Congreve, Ibsen, Wycherley, Wilde, and contemporary playwrights including Shaw, Enid Bagnold, Christopher Fry and Coward.

She had begun her film career in 1915, but was noted mostly for her stage until she appeared in the 1949 film The Last Days of Dolwyn. From then until close to her death, she made several acclaimed films, including the following:

1952 The Importance of Being Earnest
1958 Look Back in Anger
1959 The Nun's Story
1963 Tom Jones (nominated for Best Supporting Actress)
1967 The Whisperers (for which she received The Golden Bear for the Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress)
1964 The Chalk Garden (nominated for Best Supporting Actress)
1969 The Madwoman of Chaillot
1969 Crooks and Coronets
1970 Scrooge
1973 A Doll's House
1976 The Slipper and the Rose
1977 Nasty Habits

Edith Evans was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1946.

Walter Sickert painted Edith Evans as Katharina, the lead character in Shakespeare's romantic comedy, The Taming of the Shrew.

Her ashes rest at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London.

Trivia

In the 1997 movie Love! Valour! Compassion!, Jason Alexander's (homosexual) character declares, presumably tongue-in-cheek, that Dame Edith Evans and Deborah Kerr are the only heterosexual British actresses.

Reference

Ned's Girl by Bryan Forbes

External links

[Performances by Edith Evans listed in The Theatre Collection, University of Bristol]

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