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Edna May Oliver

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Full Name
  
Edna May Nutter

Occupation
  
Actress

Name
  
Edna Oliver

Cause of death
  
intestinal disorder

Years active
  
1917–1941

Role
  
Film actress

Edna May Oliver ednamayoliver Tumblr
Born
  
November 9, 1883 (
1883-11-09
)

Died
  
November 9, 1942, Malibu, California, United States

Spouse
  
David Welford Pratt (m. 1928–1931)

Parents
  
Ida May, Charles Edward Nutter

Nominations
  
Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Movies
  
Drums Along the Mohawk, Pride and Prejudice, The Penguin Pool Mur, David Copperfield, Little Women

Similar People
  
James Gleason, Freddie Bartholomew, Jessie Ralph, Elizabeth Allan, Mary Boland

Tcm tribute to character actress edna may oliver


Edna May Oliver (November 9, 1883 – November 9, 1942) was an American stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the better-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters.

Contents

EDNA MAY OLIVER TRIBUTE


Early life

Edna May Oliver Edna May Oliver Loved her as Hildegard WithersMs

Born Edna May Nutter in Malden, Massachusetts, the daughter of Ida May and Charles Edward Nutter, Oliver was a descendant of John Quincy Adams and John Adams, the sixth and second presidents of the United States. She quit school at age fourteen in order to pursue a career on stage and achieved her first success in 1917 on Broadway in Jerome Kern's musical comedy Oh, Boy!, playing the hero's comically dour Aunt Penelope.

Career

Edna May Oliver httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

In 1925, Oliver appeared on Broadway in The Cradle Snatchers, co-starring Mary Boland, Gene Raymond and Humphrey Bogart. Oliver's most notable stage appearance was as Parthy, wife of Cap'n Andy Hawks, in the original 1927 stage production of the musical Show Boat. She repeated the role in the 1932 Broadway revival, but turned down the chance to play Parthy in the 1936 film version of the show to play the Nurse in that year's film version of Romeo and Juliet.

Edna May Oliver ednamayoliver Tumblr

Her film debut was in 1923 in Wife in Name Only. She continued to appear in films until Lydia in 1941. Oliver first gained major notice in films for her appearances in several comedy films starring the team of Wheeler & Woolsey including Half Shot at Sunrise, her first film under her RKO Radio Pictures contract in 1930. While usually playing featured parts, she starred in ten films, including the women's stories Fanny Foley Herself and Ladies of the Jury.

Edna May Oliver Hall of Hams 84 Edna May Oliver Travalanche

Oliver's most popular star vehicles were mystery-comedies starring Oliver as spinster sleuth Hildegarde Withers from the popular Stuart Palmer novels. The series ended prematurely when Oliver left RKO to sign with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1935; the studio attempted to continue the series with Helen Broderick and then ZaSu Pitts as Withers, but these later films were not well received.

Edna May Oliver Old Hollywood Films Supporting Players Edna May Oliver

While at MGM, David O. Selznick had her cast in two film versions of novels by Charles Dickens, including A Tale of Two Cities as the prim but acidic Miss Pross and David Copperfield as the eccentric Betsy Trotwood. It is often said that she was also considered to play the Wicked Witch of the West in MGM's 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, the role which eventually went to Margaret Hamilton, but it is not true. She was briefly considered for a different conception of the role of Glinda, which eventually went to Billie Burke.

Ms. Oliver was also seen in two 1939 movie musicals, dancing and flirting with Tyrone Power in the Sonja Henie skating film Second Fiddle and in a major supporting role as the agent of the title characters in the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. That same year, she was nominated for a Supporting Actress Academy Award for her tough performance in Drums Along the Mohawk as an early American settler who faces raids on her farmhouse by Native Americans. A comic performance as Laurence Olivier's domineering aunt in Pride and Prejudice and a scene-stealing role as Merle Oberon's aunt in the lavish Lydia concluded her film career.

When asked why she played predominantly comedic roles, she replied, "With a horse's face, what more can I play?", however she was cast in such decidedly non-comedic films as Cimarron (1931), Ann Vickers (1933), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), David Copperfield (1935), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).

Death

Oliver died on her 59th birthday in 1942 following a short intestinal ailment that proved terminal, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Awards and honors

Oliver received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 1939 for her appearance in Drums Along the Mohawk.

Oliver was one of the many movie stars caricatured in the 1937 cartoon Porky's Road Race, and her notably "bottom-heavy" physique was satirized in cartoons such as Friz Freleng's The Hardship of Miles Standish (1940).

Filmography

Actress
1941
Lydia as
Sarah MacMillan
1940
Pride and Prejudice as
Lady Catherine de Bourgh
1939
Drums Along the Mohawk as
Mrs. Mc Klennar
1939
Nurse Edith Cavell as
Countess de Mavon
1939
Second Fiddle as
Aunt Phoebe
1939
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle as
Maggie Sutton
1938
Little Miss Broadway as
Sarah Wendling (as Edna Mae Oliver)
1938
Paradise for Three as
Mrs. Kunkel
1937
Rosalie as
Queen
1937
My Dear Miss Aldrich as
Mrs. Atherton
1937
Parnell as
Aunt Ben
1936
Romeo and Juliet as
Nurse to Juliet
1935
A Tale of Two Cities as
Miss Pross
1935
No More Ladies as
Fanny
1935
Murder on a Honeymoon as
Hildegarde Withers
1935
David Copperfield as
Aunt Betsey
1934
We're Rich Again as
Maude Stanley
1934
Murder on the Blackboard as
Hildegarde Withers
1934
The Last Gentleman as
Augusta Pritchard
1934
The Poor Rich as
Harriet Spottiswood
1933
Alice in Wonderland as
Red Queen
1933
Little Women as
Aunt March
1933
Only Yesterday as
Leona (as Edna Mae Oliver)
1933
Meet the Baron as
Dean Primrose
1933
Ann Vickers as
Malvina Wormser
1933
It's Great to Be Alive as
Dr. Prodwell
1933
The Great Jasper as
Madame Talma
1932
Penguin Pool Murder as
Miss Withers
1932
The Conquerors as
Matilda Blake
1932
Hold 'Em Jail as
Violet Jones
1932
Ladies of the Jury as
Mrs. Livingston Baldwin Crane
1931
Fanny Foley Herself as
Fanny Foley
1931
Caught Plastered as
Bearded customer's wife (uncredited)
1931
Newly Rich as
Bessie Tate
1931
Cracked Nuts as
Aunt Minnie Van Arden
1931
Laugh and Get Rich as
Sarah Austin
1931
Cimarron as
Mrs. Tracy Wyatt
1930
Half Shot at Sunrise as
Mrs. Marshall
1929
The Saturday Night Kid as
Miss Streeter
1926
Let's Get Married as
J.W. Smith
1926
The American Venus as
Mrs. Niles
1925
Lovers in Quarantine as
Amelia Pincent
1925
The Lucky Devil as
Mrs. McDee
1925
The Lady Who Lied
1924
Manhattan as
Mrs. Trapes
1924
Icebound as
Hannah
1924
Restless Wives as
Benson's Secretary
1923
Three O'Clock in the Morning as
Hetty
1923
Wife in Name Only as
Mrs. Dornham
Soundtrack
1934
We're Rich Again (performer: "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain When She Comes" - uncredited)
1933
Alice in Wonderland (performer: "Hush-a-Bye Lady in Alice's Lap" - uncredited)
1932
The Conquerors (performer: "Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground" (1864) - uncredited)
1931
Laugh and Get Rich (performer: "Pop! Goes the Weasel" - uncredited)
Archive Footage
1999
Clara Bow: Discovering the It Girl (TV Movie documentary) as
Self (from The Saturday Night Kid [1929]) (uncredited)

References

Edna May Oliver Wikipedia


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