Edith Evans

Dame Edith Mary Evans DBE (8 February 1888–14 October 1976) was an actress who had a long and distinguished career on the British stage. Later in her career, she appeared in a number of films, for which she received three Academy Award nominations, plus a BAFTA and a Golden Globe award.

She was particularly effective at portraying haughty aristocratic ladies, as in two of her most famous roles: Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (both on stage and in the 1952 film), and Miss Western in the 1963 film of Tom Jones. By contrast, she played a poverty-striken old woman in one of her most acclaimed film roles, in The Whisperers (1967).

Theatre

Edith Evans was born in London, the daughter of Edward Evans, a civil servant, and his wife, Caroline Ellen Foster. She was educated at St Michael's Church of England School, Pimlico, before being apprenticed at the age of 15 in 1903 as a milliner.

Her first stage appearance was with Miss Massey's Streatham Shakespeare Players in the role of Viola in Twelfth Night in October 1910. In 1912 she was discovered by the noted producer William Poel and made her first professional appearance for Poel in August of that year, playing the role of Gautami in an obscure sixth-century Hindu classic, Sakuntala. She received much attention with her performance as Cressida in Troilus and Cressida in London and subsequently at Stratford upon Avon.

Her distinguished career which spanned sixty years and during which she played over 150 different roles, included numerous works by Shakespeare, Congreve, Ibsen, Wycherley, Wilde, and contemporary playwrights including Shaw, Enid Bagnold, Christopher Fry and Coward. She created six of the characters of George Bernard Shaw: the Serpent, the Oracle, the She-Ancient, and the Ghost of the Serpent in Back to Methuselah (1923); Orinthia in The Apple Cart (1929); and Epifania in The Millionairess (1940). Other performances which many considered definitive were as Millamant in The Way of the World (1924), Rosalind in As You Like It (1926 and 1936), the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet (1932, 1934, 1935, and 1961), and, most notably, as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (1939), a role with which she became identified in the public's mind (in particular for her drippingly sarcastic delivery of the line: "A handbag?"). In 1964 she appeared as Judith Bliss in the revival of Hay Fever by Noel Coward and directed by Coward, himself, at the National Theatre.

Film

She had begun her film career in 1915, but was noted mostly for her stage work until she appeared in the 1949 film The Last Days of Dolwyn. From then until close to her death, she made several acclaimed films, including the following:

• 1952 The Importance of Being Earnest
• 1958 Look Back in Anger
• 1959 The Nun's Story
• 1963 Tom Jones (nominated for Best Supporting Actress)
• 1964 The Chalk Garden (nominated for Best Supporting Actress)
• 1967 The Whisperers (for which she received the BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Golden Bear awards for Best Actress, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress)
• 1967 Fitzwilly
• 1969 The Madwoman of Chaillot
• 1969 Crooks and Coronets
• 1970 Scrooge
• 1973 A Doll's House
• 1976 The Slipper and the Rose
• 1977 Nasty Habits

Edith Evans also made many television appearances

Portraits

Walter Sickert painted Edith Evans as Katharina, the lead character in Shakespeare's romantic comedy, The Taming of the Shrew. A sculpted head of her was for many years on display at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

Edith Evans was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1946. She also received four honorary degrees from the universities of London (1950), Cambridge (1951), Oxford (1954), and Hull (1968).

Her ashes rest at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London. There is a blue plaque outside her house at 109 Ebury Street, London.

References

• 1977 - Ned's Girl by Bryan Forbes, Elm Tree Books

External links

• Edith Evans at the Internet Movie Database
• Performances by Edith Evans listed in The Theatre Collection, University of Bristol
• Sweetlife Blog