Born May 27, 1879 in Québec City, Canada, Lucille Watson was the daughter of an officer of the British Army who went to New York against her father’s wishes to enroll in a drama school.

On Broadway for many years, Watson was married to actor Rockliffe Fellowes from 1906-1922.  She had an uncredited role in the 1916 film, The Girl with the Green Eyes.

Watson was later married to playwright Louis Evan Shipman from 1928 until his death in 1933.  In 1926, she played Lady Bracknell in a Broadway revival of The Importance of Being Earnest.  She did not appear in another film until 1930’s The Royal Family of Broadway in which she played another uncredited role.  Her first credited role came in 1934’s What Every Woman Knows in support of Helen Hayes and Brian Aherne when she was 55 years old.

In 1935, Watson played Mrs. Bennet in a Broadway production of Pride and Prejudice while on Screen in The Bishop Misbehaves with Edmund Gwenn and Maureen O’Sullivan, both of whom would appear in the 1940 screen version of Pride and Prejudice.  In 1936, she played Mother Superior in The Garden of Allah with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer.

Watson made a huge impression as James Stewart’s smothering mother in 1939’s Made for Each Other in which she squares off against his wife, Carole Lombard.  She showed a softer side of herself as Norma Shearer’s advice-giving mother in The Women.  Then she was even more commanding as Robert Taylor’s cool-as-ice mother who comes close to stealing the film from Vivien Leigh and Taylor in 1940’s Waterloo Bridge.

In 1941, Watson won acclaim for her Broadway role opposite Paul Lukas as her son-in-law in Watch on the Rhine.  Both she and Lukas reprised their roles in the 1943 film version for which both were nominated for Oscars.  He won in a close competition with Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca while she lost to Katina Paxinou in For Whom the Bell Tolls.

In 1944, Watson played Mother Superior in the wartime romance Till We Meet Again with Ray Milland and Barbara Britton after which she played William Powell’s mother in The Thin Man Goes Home.

1946 proved a banner year for the actress who had key roles five major films.  She was Claudette Colbert’s aunt in Tomorrow Is Forever, Barbara Stanwyck’s mother in My Reputation, Eleanor Parker’s mother in Never Say Goodbye, Bobby Drsicoll’s grandmother in Song of the South, and Gene Tierney’s mother in The Razor’s Edge.

Watson soldiered on in supporting roles through the remainder of the decade, her last classic role being that of  Aunt March in the 1949 version of Little Women.  In 1950, she had another important role as Joan Crawford’s neighbor in Harriet Craig and had her last big screen role as Ava Gardner’s aunt in 1951’s My Forbidden Past.

Following a few TV appearances and two more Broadway appearances, Watson retired in 1954 at 75.  She died in 1962 at 83.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE WOMEN (1939), directed by George Cukor

Watson was seventh billed behind Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard, and Joan Fontaine, and ahead of Phyllis Povah, Virginia Wiedler, Marjorie Main, Virginia Grey, Ruth Hussey and others in this classic comedy in which she played Shearer’s mother and Weidler’s grandmother who gives her daughter sage advice on marriage.  She later played Crawford’s neighbor in Harriet Craig, the remake of Russell’s Craig’s Wife.  One of her best-remembered stage roles was as Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, the role played by Boland in the 1940 film version.

WATERLOO BRIDGE (1940), directed by Mervyn LeRoy

Next to Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, Vivien Leigh had her most memorable role as the tragic ballerina who meets falls in love with aristocratic Robert Taylor who she impulsively marries the next day shortly before his call to service in World War I.  The supporting cast, which includes Virginia Field as Leigh’s friend, Maria Ouspensaya as her ballet teacher, C. Aubrey Smith as Taylor’s mentor, and Watson as Taylor’s stately, yet sympathetic mother, is equally superb.  The film’s most powerful and unforgettable scene is the brief, banal meeting in a café between Leigh and Watson.

WATCH ON THE RHINE (1943), directed by Herman Shumlin

Nominated for 4 Oscars including Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay by Dashiell Hammet based on Lillian Hellman’s play, Actor (Paul Lukas) and Supporting Actress (Watson), the film lost the Best Picture Oscar to Casablanca but Lukas, reprising his acclaimed Broadway role as anti-Nazi German engineer, won Best Actor over Humphrey Bogart who was nominated for the Oscar winning Casablanca.  Watson, playing Lukas’ mother-in-law, was also repeating her acclaimed stage role.  The cast also included Bette Davis as Luks’ wife and Watson’s mother, Geraldine Fitzgerald as Davis’s sister and George Coulouris as Fitzgerald’s husband.

THE RAZOR’S EDGE (1946), directed by Edmund Goulding

Nominated for 4 Oscars including Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Clifton Webb) and Supporting Actress (Anne Baxter) who won for her portrayal of a young woman who turns to drink after the death of her husband and young son.  The film, based on. Somerset Maugham’s bestselling novel, starred Tyrone Power as a young man who abandons his socialite girlfriend (Gene Tierney) to go off and find himself, returning ten years later only to have the now married Tierney still wanting to resume their affair.  The cast includes John Payne, Herbert Marshall, Elsa Lanchester, and Watson as Tierney’s worldly-wise mother and bon vivant Webb’s sister.

 LITTLE WOMEN (1949), directed by Mervyn LeRoy

Nominated for 2 Oscars, this first color version of the beloved oft-filmed novel won for its Color Art Direction and Set Design, losing Color Cinematography to She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.  Watson played Aunt March, a role previously immortalized by Edna May Oliver, and later played by such stalwarts as Greer Garson, Mary Wickes, Meryl Streep, and Angela Lansbury. June Allyson, Janet Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, and Margaret O’Brien were the sisters in this version which also featured Mary Astor as Marmee, Peter Lawford as Laurie, Rossano Brazzi as Professor Bhaer, C. Aubrey Smith as Mr. Lawrence and Elizabeth Patterson as Hannah.

LUCILE WATSON AND OSCAR

Watch on the Rhine (1943) – nominated – Best Supporting Actress