Edna May Oliver

Edna May Oliver (born Edna May Nutter, November 9, 1883 – November 9, 1942) was an American stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the better-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters.

Edna May Oliver
Oliver in c. 1940
Born	Edna May Nutter (1883-11-09)November 9, 1883 Malden, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	November 9, 1942(1942-11-09) (aged 59) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1897–1941
Spouse	David Welford Pratt ​ ​ (m. 1928; div. 1931)​

Career

Born in Malden, Massachusetts, the daughter of Ida May and Charles Edward Nutter, Oliver quit school at age 14 to pursue a stage career.

She achieved her first success in 1917 on Broadway in Jerome Kern's musical comedy Oh, Boy!, playing the hero's comically dour Aunt Penelope.^[1] In 1925, Oliver appeared on Broadway in The Cradle Snatchers, costarring Mary Boland, Gene Raymond, and Humphrey Bogart.^[2] Oliver's most notable stage appearance was as Parthy, wife of Cap'n Andy Hawks, in the original 1927 stage production of the musical Show Boat.^[3] She reprised her role in the 1932 Broadway revival,^[4] but turned down the chance to play Parthy in the 1936 film version to play the Nurse in that year's film version of Romeo and Juliet.

Her film debut was in 1923 in Wife in Name Only.^[5] She continued to appear in films until Lydia in 1941. She first gained major notice in films for her appearances in several comedies starring the team of Wheeler & Woolsey, including Half Shot at Sunrise, her first film under her RKO Radio Pictures contract in 1930. Usually in featured parts, she starred in ten films, including Fanny Foley Herself (1931) and Ladies of the Jury (1932). She played wealthy, domineering Aunt March in the 1933 version of Little Women.

Oliver (center) in lobby card for David Copperfield (1935)

John Barrymore, Oliver and Leslie Howard in Romeo and Juliet (1936)

Oliver's most popular star vehicles were mystery-comedies, starring as spinster sleuth Hildegarde Withers from the popular Stuart Palmer novels. The series ended prematurely when she left RKO to sign with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1935; the studio attempted to continue the series with Helen Broderick and then ZaSu Pitts as Withers.^[6]

While at MGM, David O. Selznick cast Oliver in two film versions of novels by Charles Dickens, as the prim, acidic Miss Pross A Tale of Two Cities^[7] (1935), starring Ronald Colman, and as the title character's eccentric aunt, Betsy Trotwood in David Copperfield^[8] (also 1935).

She appeared in the Shirley Temple film Little Miss Broadway (1938) as the landlord of a hotel for vaudevillians who wants to shut it down. She also performed in two 1939 movie musicals: with Tyrone Power in the Sonja Henie skating film Second Fiddle,^[9] and in a supporting role as the agent of the title characters in the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle.^[10] A 1940 comic performance as Laurence Olivier's Mr. Darcy's domineering aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice^[11] and a 1941 role as Merle Oberon's grandmother in Lydia^[12] concluded her film career.

She was also cast in noncomedic films such as Cimarron^[13] (1931), Ann Vickers^[14] (1933), and Romeo and Juliet^[15] (1936).

Death

Oliver died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital (today Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) on her 59th birthday in 1942 shortly after being diagnosed with abdominal cancer, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.^[16]

Awards and honors

Oliver received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Drums Along the Mohawk (1939).^[17]

Stage

(This list is limited to New York/Broadway theatrical productions.)

Broadway credits of Edna May Oliver

Date	Title	Role	Ref(s)
December 5, 1916 - January 1917	The Master		[18]
February 20, 1917 – March 30, 1918	Oh Boy	Miss Penelope Budd	[19]
November 25, 1919 – January 7, 1920	The Rose of China	Mrs. Hobson	[20]
February 2, 1920 – May 1, 1920	My Golden Girl	Mrs. Judson Mitchell	[21]
November 1, 1920 – December 11, 1920	The Half Moon	Mrs. Francis Adams Jarvis	[22]
September 26, 1921 – unknown	Wait 'Til We're Married	Aunt Meridian	[23]
November 28, 1921 – December 1921	Her Salary Man	Mrs. Sophie Perkins	[24]
September 6, 1922 – September 1922	Wild Oats Lane	June	[25]
February 10, 1923 – June 1923	Icebound	Hannah	[26]
October 13, 1924 – November 15, 1924	In His Arms	Mrs. John Clarendon	[27]
January 13, 1925 – February 1925	Isabel	Mrs. John Clarendon	[28]
September 7, 1925 – October 1926	Cradle Snatchers	Ethel Drake	[29]
December 27, 1927 – May 4, 1929	Show Boat	Parthy Ann Hawks	[30]
May 19, 1932 – October 22, 1932	Show Boat	Parthy Ann Hawks	[31]

Filmography

Silent films

Year	Title	Role	Studio/distributor	Ref(s)
1923	Wife in Name Only	Mrs. Dornham	Pyramid Pictures	[5]
1923	Three O'Clock in the Morning	Hetty	C. C. Burr Pictures	[32]
1924	Restless Wives	Benson's Secretary	C. C. Burr Pictures	[33]
1924	Icebound	Hannah	Famous Players–Lasky	[34]
1924	Manhattan	Mrs. Trapes	Famous Players–Lasky	[35]
1925	The Lucky Devil	Mrs. McDee	Famous Players–Lasky	[36]
1925	Lovers in Quarantine	Amelia Pincent	Famous Players–Lasky	[37]
1925	The Lady Who Lied		First National Pictures	[38]
1926	The American Venus	Mrs. Niles	Famous Players–Lasky	[39]
1926	Let's Get Married	J. W. Smith	Famous Players–Lasky	[40]

Talkies

Year	Title	Role	Studio/Distributor	Ref(s)
1929	The Saturday Night Kid	Miss Streeter	Paramount Productions	[41]
1930	Half Shot at Sunrise	Mrs. Marshall	RKO Pictures	[42]
1931	Cimarron	Mrs. Tracy Wyatt	RKO Pictures	[13]
1931	Forbidden Adventure	Bessie Tate	Paramount Productions	[43]
1931	Fanny Foley Herself	Fanny Foley	RKO Pictures	[44]
1931	Laugh and Get Rich	Sarah Austin	RKO Pictures	[45]
1931	Cracked Nuts	Aunt Minnie Van Varden	RKO Pictures	[46]
1932	The Penguin Pool Murder	Miss Hildegarde Martha Withers	RKO Pictures	[47]
1932	Ladies of the Jury	Mrs. Livingston Baldwin Crane	RKO Pictures	[48]
1932	The Conquerors	Matilda Blake	RKO Pictures	[49]
1932	Hold 'Em Jail	Violet	RKO Pictures	[50]
1933	Ann Vickers	Malvina Wormser	RKO Pictures	[14]
1933	Meet the Baron	Dean Primrose	MGM	[51]
1933	The Great Jasper	Madame Talma	RKO Pictures	[52]
1933	It's Great to Be Alive	Dr. Prodwell	Fox Film Corp.	[53]
1933	Only Yesterday	Leona	Universal Pictures	[54]
1933	Little Women	Aunt March	RKO Pictures	[55]
1933	Alice in Wonderland	The Red Queen	Paramount Productions	[56]
1934	The Last Gentleman	Augusta Pritchard	20th Century Fox	[57]
1934	The Poor Rich	Harriet Spottiswood	Universal Pictures	[58]
1934	Murder on the Blackboard	Hildegarde Withers	RKO Pictures	[59]
1934	We're Rich Again	Maude	RKO Pictures	[60]
1935	David Copperfield	Aunt Betsey Trotwood	MGM	[8]
1935	No More Ladies	Mrs. Fanny "Grandma" Townsend	MGM	[61]
1935	Murder on a Honeymoon	Hildegarde Withers	RKO Pictures	[62]
1935	A Tale of Two Cities	Miss Pross	MGM	[7]
1937	My Dear Miss Aldrich	Mrs. Lou Atherton	MGM	[63]
1937	Parnell	Aunt Ben Wood	MGM	[64]
1937	Rosalie	Queen of Romanza	MGM	[65]
1937	Romeo and Juliet	The Nurse	MGM Note: Premiered August 20, 1936, but not released until April 16, 1937	[15]
1938	Little Miss Broadway	Sarah Wendling	20th Century Fox	[66]
1938	Paradise for Three	Mrs. Julia Kunkel	MGM	[67]
1939	Nurse Edith Cavell	Countess de Mavon	Imperadio Pictures Ltd	[68]
1939	Drums Along the Mohawk	Mrs. McKlennar	20th Century Fox	[69]
1939	The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle	Maggie Sutton	RKO Pictures	[10]
1939	Second Fiddle	Aunt Phoebe	20th Century Fox	[9]
1940	Pride and Prejudice	Lady Catherine de Bourgh	MGM	[11]
1941	Lydia	Sarah MacMillan	Alexander Korda Films	[12]
1976	America at the Movies	Footage	American Film Institute	[70]

Radio

Oliver was a regular cast member from 1941 to 1942 on the Bob Burns series The Arkansas Traveler. She often played the character of an off-beat nurse, the type of role she had already performed earlier during her movie career.^[71]

On July 7, 1942 Oliver started a new summer radio series titled The Remarkable Miss Tuttle.^[72] She played the lead role of Josephine Tuttle, and the program had a planned 13-week run. However, Oliver quickly became ill and her role was taken over by her friend Mary Boland.^[73] When it became apparent that Oliver could not return, the title of the program was changed to The Remarkable Miss Crandall, with Boland playing the new lead character. This new format only lasted two weeks, and for the remaining four weeks the program was replaced by a new series, Mayor of the Town, starring Lionel Barrymore.^[74]