Anna Chappell

Chappell was born Anna Oksanen[1] in 1925 to Finnish parents Carl and Aino Oksanen.[1] Though born in Finland, Chappell relocated to Toronto, Canada in her early childhood.[2] Both her parents were actors.[1] Chappell was raised in Toronto, where she became interested in theater at a young age.[2] As a child, she sang with the Canadian Navy entertainment corps.[1]

She met her husband, American musician Harry Chappell, while working as a singer.[3] The couple married in Binghamton, New York in 1946,[4] and relocated to Shreveport, Louisiana in the mid-1950s; there, Chappell became active in local theater.[3] She appeared as Lady Thiang in a production of The King and I, which toured in Corning, New York in 1959.[5] In 1970, Chappell earned critical acclaim[6] for her performance in Mame at the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse in Shreveport.[7] For her performance, she was awarded a Best Actress award from The Shreveport Times.[8]

Chappell's husband, Harry, who ran a music store in Shreveport, died on March 31, 1981.[9] In 1983, she starred as Mme. Danzard in a production of My Sister in this House at the Kennedy Center, directed by Robert Buseick.[2] The same year, she made her feature film debut in the slasher film Mountaintop Motel Massacre, playing an unhinged woman who begins murdering guests in the hotel she operates.[10] Terry Lawson of the Dayton Daily News praised her performance as being handled with "a comic intensity."[10] She later had a supporting role in Robert Mulligan's drama film The Man in the Moon (1991).[11]

In the spring of 2005, Chappell relocated from Shreveport to live with her daughter in Appleton, Wisconsin.[12] She died two months later in Appleton on July 31, 2005.[2] A memorial service for Chappell was arranged in Shreveport.[2]

• The King and I (1959)[5]
• Peter Pan (1960)[14]
• Mame (1970)

• Anna Chappell on IMDb