Profile of Judith Anderson on Famous Like Me

Judith Anderson (February 10, 1897 – January 3, 1992) was an Australian stage and film actress.

Born Frances Margaret Anderson-Anderson in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, Anderson began acting in Australia before moving to New York in 1918. She established herself as a dramatic actress of note making several appearance in the plays of William Shakespeare.

Preferring the stage, she did not appear in many films, and in Hollywood she was considered a character actress who was difficult to cast because of her striking features. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. As the housekeeper "Mrs. Danvers", Anderson was required to mentally torment a young bride played by Joan Fontaine, even encouraging her to commit suicide and the character is widely considered to be one of the screen's most memorable female villains.

This led to several film appearances during the 40s in such films as Kings Row (1943), Laura (1944), The Diary of a Chambermaid and And Then There Were None (both 1946). She continued returning to the New York stage, playing the role of Lady Macbeth twice and winning a Tony Award in 1948 for her historically acclaimed bravura performance in the title role of Medea (play). Many years later she would appear in Medea (play), with actress Zoe Caldwell in the title role, as the supporting character of the "Nurse".

She holds the unusual distinction of winning two separate Emmy Awards for playing the same role - Lady Macbeth - in two separate productions of Macbeth.

Her stage and film work continued and by the 50s she was also appearing in television productions.

In her later years she played two more prominent roles in productions that took her as far away from her Shakespearean origins as possible. In 1984 she appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as the Vulcan High Priestess (at the age of 87), and the same year commenced a three year stint as matriarch "Minx Lockridge" on the popular soap opera Santa Barbara of which she had professed to be a fan, but bitterly complained about her lack of screen time after signing the contract. She was succeeded as "Minx Lockridge" by American actress Janis Paige.

She also loved the city of Santa Barbara, California and spent the remainder of her life there, dying of pneumonia in 1992 at the age of 94, survived by only a niece.

Anderson was created a DBE in 1959 and thereafter was often billed as Dame Judith Anderson.

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