Years active 1900s-1958 Name Evelyn Varden | Role Character actress Siblings Norma Varden | |
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Movies The Night of the Hunter, The Bad Seed, Phone Call from a Stranger, Pinky, The Student Prince Similar People Sally Jane Bruce, Billy Chapin, Don Beddoe, Nancy Kelly, James Gleason | ||
EVELYN VARDEN in THE SILVER CORD Sidney Howard classic play OTR
Evelyn Varden (June 12, 1893, Adair, Oklahoma – July 11, 1958, Manhattan, New York City) was an American character actress. She began her career as a teenager in the first decade of the 20th century and was on Broadway by age sixteen in 1910. It was not until the 1930s and into her forties that her stage career took off in the theater, notably playing Mrs. Gibbs, the small town matron who dreams of Paris, in the original production of Our Town. The role was played by Fay Bainter in the 1940 motion picture.
Contents
- EVELYN VARDEN in THE SILVER CORD Sidney Howard classic play OTR
- Filmography
- Broadway Appearances
- References
Varden's stage work mainly consisted of showy supporting roles although she did star in the ill-fated Return Engagement by Lawrence Riley. The 1950 melodrama Hilda Crane was a personal success for Varden although the play itself ran only two months. The following year she played the Nurse in a production of Romeo and Juliet toplining Olivia De Havilland. Her final Broadway appearance in The Bad Seed was one of her acclaimed performances. She occasionally appeared on radio from the early 1940s and well into the 1950s. She starred in radio productions of Hay Fever, The Silver Cord, and The Glass Menagerie among several other programs. She would later appear in a number of television productions during the 1950s, including an adaptation of Cradle Song, opposite Judith Anderson. Contrary to some reports, Evelyn Varden is not related to fellow actress of her day Norma Varden (1898-1989), who was born in England.
Varden did not make her first film appearance until 1949 at age 56 with the film Pinky. She then went on to make over a dozen more films, including recreating her stage roles in the motion picture adaptations of Hilda Crane (1956) and The Bad Seed (1956). Her best-known motion picture performance was as the gregarious storekeeper Icy Spoon in the 1955 film classic The Night of the Hunter starring Robert Mitchum. She was still going strong in her career at the time of her sudden death. Varden died on July 11, 1958 at 65 in Flower-Fifth Avenue Hospital in Manhattan.