Judith Evelyn

Early years

Evelyn was born Judith Evelyn Morris in Seneca, South Dakota. She was raised in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. She attended the University of Manitoba, where she was active in drama, and went on to develop her acting skills at Hart House.

Career

Evelyn worked on radio both for the British Broadcasting Corporation and for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Her early stage experience included being a member of a Canadian Chautauqua unit in 1932. The next year, she performed with the Pasadena Community Playhouse in California.

Evelyn appeared on Broadway in the following plays:

All of the four plays were made into films, but Evelyn did not appear in any of them. She did appear in other films, including as "Miss Lonelyhearts", the lonely alcoholic spied on by James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. In 1956, Evelyn played the role of Nancy Lynnton in George Stevens' Giant. She also had a brief performance as Queen Mother Taia in Michael Curtiz's The Egyptian, and was featured with Vincent Price in The Tingler (1959).

In the fall of 1958, Evelyn guest starred as Clara Keller, a lonely widow who falls prey to communist agents in the episode "Man in the Moon" of Bruce Gordon's short-lived Cold War docudrama, Behind Closed Doors.

Personal life

On September 3, 1939, she and her fiancé, Canadian radio producer Andrew Allan, survived the sinking of the Anchor-Donaldson liner SS Athenia. The Athenia was the first British passenger liner to be sunk by a German submarine in World War II.

Recognition

In 1942, Evelyn won the Distinguished Performance Award from the Drama League of New York, an award that is "bestowed each season on a single performer from over sixty nominated performances from Broadway and Off-Broadway."

Death

Evelyn died from cancer, in New York City, on May 7, 1967. She was 58 years old. She was interred at the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York.