Other names Violet Kemble Cooper Role Film actress Occupation Actress Spouse Walter Ferris | Years active 1905–36 Parents Frank Kemble-Cooper Name Violet Kemble-Cooper Children Stuart Ferris | |
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Full Name Violet Kemble-Cooper Born 12 December 1886 ( 1886-12-12 ) London, England Died August 17, 1961, Hollywood, California, United States Movies Our Betters, Romeo and Juliet, David Copperfield, Vanessa: Her Love Story, The Fountain Similar People Lillian Kemble‑Cooper, George Cukor, William K Howard, John Cromwell, Herbert Stothart | ||
Violet Kemble-Cooper (12 December 1886 -– 17 August 1961) was a British stage and film actress.
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Life and Career
Born in London, she was a descendant from a well-known theatrical family, the Kemble family. Her father was actor Frank Kemble-Cooper (1857-1918). Her sisters Lillian Kemble-Cooper and Greta Kemble Cooper, and her brother Anthony Kemble Cooper were actors as well. An uncle was revered thespian H. Cooper Cliffe.
She made her first stage appearance in 1905 in her native England in a production of Charley's Aunt. By 1912 she was in America, touring and in stock plays with such luminaries as Blanche Bates and Laurette Taylor. She appeared with John and Ethel Barrymore in Claire de Lune on Broadway in 1921.
Violet spent her formative years acting in the theater and never appeared in silent films. She appeared in talkies beginning with the Constance Bennett film Our Betters (1933). She appeared in several more films, including the evil spinster Miss Murdstone in the Dickens film adaption David Copperfield (1935) and Boris Karloff's mother in the horror film The Invisible Ray (1936). Kemble-Coopers last movie was the MGM costumer Romeo and Juliet (1936), where she portrayed Lady Capulet.
She was married to Walter Ferris, a writer. She died of a stroke and Parkinson's disease in 1961.