Edith Barrett
Edith Barrett (January 19, 1907 – February 22, 1977) was an American actress.
Edith Barrett | |
---|---|
Born | Edith Williams January 19, 1907 Roxbury, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Died | February 22, 1977 70) Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. | (aged
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | c.1923–1959 |
Spouse(s) | |
Children | Vincent Barrett Price |
Relatives | Lawrence Barrett (grandfather) |
Biography
Edith Williams was a granddaughter of 19th-century American actor Lawrence Barrett.[1] She entered the entertainment industry at age 16 in a staging of Walter Hampden's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. At age 19, in 1926, she appeared with Hampden in Caponsacchi. During the 1930s, she performed with Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre troupe.
While appearing in the Mercury Theatre 1937 production of The Shoemaker's Holiday, she married leading man Vincent Price in 1938. The marriage ended in 1948. She and Price had one son, author/poet and environmental activist Vincent Barrett Price (born 1940). Her biggest Broadway success was as star of the now-obscure production Mrs. Moonlight.
In her first film, Ladies in Retirement (1941), she played one of the two half-witted half-sisters of Ida Lupino's homicidal character. Her best remembered movie role is possibly Mrs. Holland's mother-in-law in I Walked with a Zombie (1943), a movie sometimes described as "Jane Eyre" in the West Indies. She was almost three years younger than her "son" in that film (played by Tom Conway). She appeared briefly onscreen with Price twice in The Song of Bernadette and again in Keys of the Kingdom (1944). The following year she was seen as Mrs. Fairfax in 20th Century-Fox's adaptation of the real Jane Eyre (1944). She retired from films after essaying a minor role in The Swan (1956).
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1941 | Ladies in Retirement | Louisa Creed | |
1942 | Lady for a Night | Katherine Alderson | |
1942 | Give Out, Sisters | Agatha Waverly | |
1942 | Get Hep to Love | Miss Roberts | |
1942 | You Can't Escape Forever | Madame Lucille | |
1943 | I Walked with a Zombie | Mrs. Rand | |
1943 | Always a Bridesmaid | Mrs. Cavanaugh | |
1943 | The Ghost Ship | Ellen Roberts | |
1943 | The Song of Bernadette | Croisine Bouhouhorts | |
1943 | Jane Eyre | Mrs. Fairfax | |
1944 | The Story of Dr. Wassell | Mother of Little English Boy | Uncredited |
1944 | Strangers in the Night | Ivy Miller | |
1944 | The Keys of the Kingdom | Aunt Polly | |
1945 | Molly and Me | Julia | |
1945 | That's the Spirit | Abigail | |
1948 | Ruthless | Mrs. Burnside | |
1949 | The Lady Gambles | Ruth Phillips | |
1952 | Holiday for Sinners | Mrs. Corvier | |
1956 | The Swan | Elsa - Beatrix's Maid | |
1958 | In Love and War | Mrs. Lenaine | Uncredited |
Notes
- Charles Brackett, The New Yorker, November 6, 1926, page 34.
External links
- Edith Barrett on IMDb
- Edith Barrett at the Internet Broadway Database
- Edith Barrett at AllMovie
- Edith Barrett at Find a Grave