Edna May Oliver

Infobox actor
name = Edna May Oliver


imagesize = 150px
caption = in the "Little Women" trailer (1933)
birthname =
birthdate = birth date|1883|11|9|mf=y
birthplace = Malden, Massachusetts, United States
deathdate = death date and age|1942|11|9|1883|11|9
deathplace = Malibu, California, United States
birthname = Edna May Nutter

Edna May Oliver (November 9, 1883 – November 9, 1942) was an Oscar-nominated American film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the American screen's best-known character actresses often playing tart-tongued spinsters.

Early life

Born Edna May Nutter in Malden, Massachusetts, the daughter of Ida May and Charles Edward Nutter, Edna was a descendant of the 6th American president John Quincy Adams. 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 Quaker Aunt Penelope.

Career

Oliver's most notable stage appearance was as Parthy, wife of Cap'n Andy Hawks, in the original 1927 stage production of the famous 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 so that she could play the Nurse in that year's film version of "Romeo and Juliet". Helen Westley played Parthy in the 1936 "Show Boat". Oliver's role as the Nurse was her only role in a Shakespeare film or play.

Her film debut occurred in 1923 in the film "Wife in Name Only" and 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 contract in 1930.

While most often playing featured parts, she starred in 10 films, including the women's stories "Fanny Foley Herself" and "Ladies of the Jury". Edna May 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 Radio to sign with MGM 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.

Oliver frequently appeared in film versions of classic British literature, including "Alice in Wonderland" (1933), "A Tale of Two Cities" (1935), "David Copperfield" (1935), the 1936 film version of "Romeo and Juliet", and "Pride and Prejudice" (1940). She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 1939 for her appearance in "Drums Along the Mohawk".

Filmography

* "Lydia" (1941) .... Sarah MacMillan
* "Pride and Prejudice" (1940) .... Lady Catherine de Bourgh
* "Drums Along the Mohawk" (1939) .... Mrs. McKlennar
* "Nurse Edith Cavell" (1939) .... Countess de Mavon
* "Second Fiddle" (1939) .... Aunt Phoebe
* "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" (1939) .... Maggie Sutton
* "Little Miss Broadway" (1938) .... Sarah Wendling
* "Paradise for Three" (1938) .... Mrs. Julia Kunkel
* "Rosalie" (1937) .... Queen of Romanza
* "My Dear Miss Aldrich" (1937) .... Mrs. Lou Atherton
* "Parnell" (1937) .... Aunt Ben Wood
* "Romeo and Juliet" (1936) .... Nurse to Juliet
* "A Tale of Two Cities" (1935) .... Miss Pross
* "No More Ladies" (1935) .... Mrs. Fanny 'Grandma' Townsend
* "Murder on a Honeymoon" (1935) .... Hildegarde Withers
* "Personal History, Adventures, Experience, and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger" (1935) .... Aunt Betsy Trotwood
* "We're Rich Again" (1934) .... Maude Stanley
* "Murder on the Blackboard" (1934) .... Hildegarde Withers
* "The Last Gentleman" (1934) .... Augusta Pritchard
* "The Poor Rich" (1934) .... Harriet Spottiswood
* "Alice in Wonderland" (1933) .... The Red Queen
* "Little Women" (1933) .... Aunt March
* "Only Yesterday" (1933) .... Leona
* "Meet the Baron" (1933) .... Dean Primrose
* "Ann Vickers" (1933) .... Malvina Wormser
* "It's Great to Be Alive" (1933) .... Dr. Prodwell
* "The Great Jasper" (1933) .... Madame Talma
* "Penguin Pool Murder" (1932) .... Miss Hildegarde Martha Withers
* "The Conquerors" (1932) .... Matilda Blake
* "Hold 'Em Jail" (1932) .... Violet
* "Ladies of the Jury" (1932) .... Mrs. Livingston Baldwin Crane
* "Fanny Foley Herself" (1931) .... Fanny Foley
* "Newly Rich" (1931) .... Bessie Tate
* "Cracked Nuts" (1931) .... Aunt Minnie Van Varden
* "Laugh and Get Rich" (1931) .... Mrs. Sarah Cranston Austin
* "Cimarron" (1931) .... Mrs. Tracy Wyatt
* "Half Shot at Sunrise" (1930) .... Mrs. Marshall
* "The Saturday Night Kid" (1929) .... Miss Streeter
* "Let's Get Married" (1926) .... J.W. Smith
* "The American Venus" (1926) .... Mrs. Niles
* "Lovers in Quarantine" (1925) .... Amelia Pincent
* "The Lucky Devil" (1925) .... Mrs. McDee
* "The Lady Who Lied" (1925) ....
* "Manhattan" (1924) .... Mrs. Trapes
* "Icebound" (1924) .... Hannah
* "Restless Wives" (1924) .... Benson's Secretary
* "Three O'Clock in the Morning" (1923/I) .... Hetty
* "Wife in Name Only" (1923) .... Mrs. Dornham

Death

The actress being notably "bottom-heavy" (a fact satirized in cartoons such as "The Hardship of Miles Standish" (Warner Bros., Friz Freleng, 1940)), coincidentally was connected with her demise.

She 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.

External links

*
* [http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=2:53979~T1 Edna May Oliver] at allmovie

Persondata
NAME= Oliver, Edna May
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Nutter, Edna May
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Actor
DATE OF BIRTH= 1883-11-9
PLACE OF BIRTH= Malden, Massachusetts, United States
DATE OF DEATH= 1942-11-9
PLACE OF DEATH= Malibu, California, United States