Oscar Profile #54: Edith Evans

Born February 8, 1888 in London, the daughter of a civil servant and his wife, Edith Evans is generally regarded as the greatest actress of the British stage in the last century. She trod the boards for sixty years appearing in both classics (Shakespeare, Ibsen, Wilde, etc.) and contemporary works (Shaw, Bagnold, Coward, etc.).

Apprenticed to a milliner at age 15, by 20 she had left the profession and was beginning to make a name for herself as an actress. She appeared in three silent films in her late twenties, but returned to the stage where she felt more at home.

By the time she was offered the role of the nurse in the 1936 Hollywood version of Romeo and Juliet, she had already played the part on the London stage and in the acclaimed 1934 Broadway production with Katharine Cornell and Brian Aherne. Brought to Hollywood with much fanfare, the film’s star, Norma Shearer, had her fired because she felt Evans was stealing the film out from under her. Vowing never to return to Hollywood, she didn’t until she received her first Oscar nomination nearly thirty years later.

In the meantime she returned once again to the London stage where in 1938, at the age of 50, she played her signature role, the imperious Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (“a ha-a-a-andbag?”), for the first time.

George Bernard Shaw, for whom Evans was the original Saint Joan in the 1920s, and with whom some sources say she had a long-term affair, wrote The Millionairess for her in 1940. The role was played by Sophia Loren in a 1960 film and more recently by Maggie Smith on British TV.

Made a Dame of the British Empire in 1946, Evans made her talkie debut at the age of 61 in Torold Dickinson’s film of Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades, playing the title role, that of a 90 year-old countess.

Anthony Asquith’s splendid 1952 film version of The Importance of Being Earnest brought her international acclaim after which she did some live TV both in London and New York to augment her stage work, not making another film until a pair of 1959 films put her permanently in the spotlight.

A small but important role in Tony Richardson’s film of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger was quickly followed by her imperious mother superior in Fred Zinnemann’s Oscar nominated The Nun’s Story, her first Hollywood film, albeit one filmed abroad.

Her imperious, but hilarious, Miss Western in Tony Richardson’s Oscar winning film of Fielding’s Tom Jones brought her her first Oscar nomination and her first trip to Hollywood since being fired from Romeo and Juliet.

When Gladys Cooper, who originated the role of Mrs. St. Maugham in Ronald Neame’s film of Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden was forced to withdraw from the film because of scheduling conflicts, Evans who played the part in London got the role and her second Oscar nomination.

Her portrayal of the frightened old woman in Bryan Forbes’ 1967 film, The Whisperers brought her her third Oscar nomination and her only one as lead actress. Having won just about every extant award up the Oscars, she was considered the front-runner but lost in an upset as the award went to Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

Finally embraced by Hollywood, she made her first film there – Delbert Mann’s caper comedy, Fitzwilly with Dick Van Dyke as her butler.

Now in her eighties, she was still in demand, playing one of the “other” madwomen in 1969’s The Madwoman of Chaillot in support of Katharine Hepburn; Aunt Betsy Trotwood in the same year’s David Copperfield; the Ghost of Christmas Past in 1970’s Scrooge and turned down the lead in 1971’s Harold and Maude.

Her last role was as the Mother Abbess whose death kicks off a turf war within a Philadelphia convent in 1977’s Nasty Habits, released after her real life death in October, 1976 at the age of 88.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE QUEEN OF SPADES (1949), directed by Torold Dickinson

One of the greatest horror films ever made, albeit one that doesn’t seem to be all that well known to today’s audiences, it’s based on an 1834 short story by Alexander Pushkin, the high-born Russian writer who was fatally wounded in his 29th duel three years later at the age of 37.

Evans plays a 90 year-old countess who has made a pact with the devil, exchanging her soul for never losing at cards. Haughty and mean and frightened at the same time, Evans’ performance is a tour-de-force matched by the equally ferocious Anton Walbrook as her nemesis. The two provide a master-class in acting that is a joy to behold.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (1952), directed by Anthony Asquith

Oscar Wilde’s famous comedy of manners has been performed many times on stage, on TV and in a recent rather bland film. Once seen, however, no version can compare with Anthony Asquith’s just-right version with an impeccable cast that includes Michael Redgrave, Michael Denison, Joan Greenwood, Dorothy Tutin, Margaret Rutherford and towering above them all, Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell, the role she was born to play, and play it she did over and over and to perfection here. The scene in which she berates poor Miss Prism (Rutherford) remains one of the funniest in British film history.

TOM JONES (1963), directed by Tony Richardson

Tony Richardson’s acclaimed film of Henry Fielding’s 18th Century novel generally gets short shrift by those ranking Oscar winning films and I’ve never understood why. Granted, nothing in it is shocking to today’s audiences, so the film that seemed so shocking to audiences raised on the Hays Code may have lost some of its bite, but not its ability to bring howls of laughter. One of the most enjoyable things about it is Evans’ Miss Western. The scene in which she is stopped by a highwayman and asked to stand and deliver is still uproariously funny.

THE CHALK GARDEN (1964), directed by Ronald Neame

Evans had played the part of the selfish grandmother on the London stage, so the film version fit her like an old glove. Trying to keep her spoiled grand-daughter (Hayley Mills) from her estranged mother and Evans’ daughter (Elizabeth Sellars), she hires a governess (Deborah Kerr) about whom she knows very little but is about to find more than she bargained for. It’s a lovely performance, a rare portrait of an old lady in which the old lady grows and changes over the course of the film. Fourth billed behind Kerr, Mills and Mills’ real-life father John Mills as Evans’ butler, Evans is nevertheless the centerpiece of the film and the reason for seeing it more than once.

THE WHISPERERS (1967), directed by Bryan Forbes

By this time in her career Evans had no more to prove, but prove it she did. Almost always in grand lady roles, in which she was dressed to the nines, it was a shock for audiences of the day to see her playing a poverty stricken old lady who at one point has to beg her welfare worker for a new pair of shoes, showing the holes in the ones she’s wearing – the only pair she’s got.

The role was a revelation on many levels including the only hint on film that Evans may have once had an active sex life when her long-missing gangster husband and no-account son show up for some mischief in the film. Most of all, though, it is a portrait of lonely old age that served as a warning to audiences of the day that they had better put aside some money for their own later years. The best scenes in the film are the ones in which Evans is alone in her ramshackle old house with her imaginary “whisperers”.