Jessica Tandy

From Alfred Hitchcock Wiki

Photograph of Jessica Tandy ("The Birds").

born: 07/Jun/1909 (London, England, UK)
died: 11/Sep/1994 (Easton, Connecticut, USA) - ovarian cancer

[edit] Biography

Jessica Tandy, christened Jessie Alice Tandy, was a noted Academy Award-winning British-American theatre, film and TV actress.

After an acting career spanning some sixty five years, Tandy found latter-day movie stardom in major-studio releases and intimate dramas alike. From a young age she was determined to be an actress, and first appeared on the London stage in 1926, playing, among others, Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier's "Henry V", and Cordelia opposite John Gielgud's "King Lear". She also worked in British films. Following the end of her first marriage, she moved to New York and met Canadian actor Hume Cronyn, who became her second husband and frequent partner on stage and screen. She made her American film debut in "The Seventh Cross" (1944), in her only screen apparance with Cronyn. She also appeared in "The Valley of Decision" (1945), "The Green Years" (1946, as Cronyn's daughter!), and "Forever Amber" (1947). After her Tony-winning performance as Blanche DuBois in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire", she concentrated on the stage and only appeared sporadically in films such as "The Light in the Forest" (1957) and "The Birds" (1963).

The beginning of the 1980s saw a resurgence in her film career, with character roles in "The World According to Garp", "Best Friends", "Still of the Night" (all 1982) and "The Bostonians" (1984), and the hit film "Cocoon" (1985), opposite Cronyn, with whom she reteamed for "*Batteries not included" (1987) and "Cocoon: The Return" (1988). She and Cronyn had been working together more and more, on stage and television, to continued acclaim, notably in 1987's "Foxfire" which won her an Emmy Award (recreating her Tony-winning Broadway role). However, it was her colorful performance in "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989), as an aging, stubborn Southern-Jewish matron, that made her a bonafide Hollywood star and earned her an Oscar. She was the oldest actor to ever win an Academy Award, beating out the late George Burns by less than a year. She subsequently earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work in the grass-roots hit "Fried Green Tomatoes" (1992), and co-starred in "The Story Lady" (1991 telefilm, with daughter Tandy Cronyn), "Used People" (1992, as Shirley MacLaine's Jewish mother), "To Dance With the White Dog" (1993 telefilm, with husband, Hume Cronyn), "Nobody's Fool" (1994), and "Camilla" (also 1994, with Cronyn). "Camilla" was to be her last performance, and it was bold in one way that she, at the age of about eighty four and knowing that she was dying, had a brief nude scene, which could also be called "cheeky".

She died at home on September 11, 1994, in Easton, Connecticut, of ovarian cancer at the age of eighty five.

(Wikipedia)