Jessica Tandy


Jessica Tandy

Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn at the 1988 Emmy Awards
Born June 7, 1909(1909-06-07)
London, England, UK
Died September 11, 1994 (aged 85)
Easton,Connecticut, U.S.
Spouse(s) Jack Hawkins (1932-1942)
Hume Cronyn (1942-1994)

Jessie Alice Tandy (June 7, 1909 – September 11, 1994) was an Academy Award-winning British-born American stage and film actress.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Tandy, the last of three children, was born in Geldeston Road in the London Borough of Hackney[1] to Jessie Helen Horspool, the head of a school for mentally handicapped children, and Harry Tandy, a travelling salesman for a rope manufacturer.[2] Her father died when Tandy was 12, and as a result her mother taught evening courses to increase the family's income. Tandy was educated at the Dame Alice Owen's School in the London Borough of Islington.

Career

After an acting career spanning some 65 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 (to Jack Hawkins), 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). She also appeared in The Valley of Decision (1945), The Green Years (1946, ironically enough as Cronyn's daughter!), Dragonwyck (1946) starring Gene Tierney 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 lost the film role to actress Vivien Leigh) she concentrated on the stage. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1952. For the next 30 years, she appeared sporadically in films such as The Light in the Forest (1958), The Birds (1963), The World According to Garp (1982, as Glenn Close's mother) and Cocoon (1985, the latter two opposite Cronyn).

Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy, 1989.
Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy, 1989.

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 bona fide Hollywood star and earned her an Oscar. She was the oldest actor to ever win an Academy Award, beating out George Burns by less than a year.

Tandy was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world in 1990. She earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work in the grassroots 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 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 84 and knowing that she was dying, had a brief nude scene, which could also be called "cheeky".

Personal life

Tandy married twice. Her first, to British actor Jack Hawkins, in 1932, produced one daughter, Susan Hawkins (born 1934). The couple divorced in 1942. Tandy remarried, to Canadian-American actor, Hume Cronyn, in 1942. The couple had two children, Tandy Cronyn, also an actress, and son Christopher Cronyn. Tandy and Cronyn remained together until her death in 1994.

In 1990, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer which she battled fiercely for five years, during which she continued to work. She had previously been treated for angina and glaucoma.

She died at home on September 11, 1994, in Easton, Connecticut, of ovarian cancer at the age of 85. Prior to moving to Connecticut, she lived with Cronyn for many years in nearby Pound Ridge, New York on land adjacent to their dear friends (and Cronyn's cousin), the producer Robert Whitehead and actress Zoe Caldwell.

Awards

  • British Film Award
  • 1987 - Best Actress-Miniseries/Special, Foxfire
  • 1994 - Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement shared with her husband, Hume Cronyn
  • 1982 - Best Actress, Foxfire,
  • 1978 - Best Actress (Play), The Gin Game
  • 1948 - Best Actress (Dramatic), A Streetcar Named Desire

Selected Broadway credits

Year Production Role Other notes
1947 A Streetcar Named Desire Blanche DuBois Tony Award
1950 Hilda Crane Hilda Crane
1951 The Fourposter Agnes
1959 Five Finger Exercise Louise Harrington
1966 A Delicate Balance Agnes
1971 Home Marjorie
1977 The Gin Game Fonsia Dorsey Tony Award
1982 Foxfire Annie Nations Tony Award
1983 The Glass Menagerie The Mother
1986 The Petition Lady Elizabeth Milne Nominated - Tony Award

Filmography

Year Film Role Other notes
1932 The Indiscretions of Eve Maid
1938 Murder in the Family Ann Osborne
1944 The Seventh Cross Liesel Roeder
Blonde Fever Diner at Inn uncredited
1945 The Valley of Decision Louise Kane
1946 Dragonwyck Peggy O'Malley
The Green Years Kate Leckie
1947 Forever Amber Nan Britton
1948 A Woman's Vengeance Janet Spence
1950 September Affair Catherine Lawrence
1951 The Desert Fox Frau Lucie Marie Rommel
1958 The Light in the Forest Myra Butler
1962 Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man Helen Adams Nominated - Golden Globe
1963 The Birds Lydia Brenner
1976 Butley Edna Shaft
1981 Honky Tonk Freeway Carol
1982 The World According to Garp Mrs. Fields
Still of the Night Grace Rice
Best Friends Eleanor McCullen
1984 The Bostonians Miss Birdseye
1985 Cocoon Alma Finley
1987 *batteries not included Faye Riley
1988 The House on Carroll Street Miss Venable
Cocoon: The Return Alma Finley
1989 Driving Miss Daisy Daisy Werthan Academy Award for Best Actress; BAFTA Award; Golden Globe
1991 Fried Green Tomatoes Ninny Threadgoode Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress;
Nominated - BAFTA Award; Nominated - Golden Globe
1992 Used People Freida
1994 A Century of Cinema Herself documentary
Nobody's Fool Beryl Peoples
Camilla Camilla Cara
Awards
Preceded by
Ingrid Bergman for Joan of Lorraine & Helen Hayes for Happy Birthday		 Tony Award - Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
for A Streetcar Named Desire
tied with Judith Anderson for Medea
and Katharine Cornell for Antony and Cleopatra
1948		 Succeeded by
Martita Hunt
for The Madwoman of Chaillot
Preceded by
Julie Harris
for The Belle of Amherst		 Tony Award - Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
for The Gin Game
1978		 Succeeded by
Constance Cummings for Wings and Carole Shelley for The Elephant Man
Preceded by
Cloris Leachman		 Sarah Siddons Award
1979		 Succeeded by
Claudette Colbert
Preceded by
Zoe Caldwell for Medea		 Tony Award - Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
for Foxfire
1982		 Succeeded by
Glenn Close for The Real Thing
Preceded by
Gena Rowlands
for The Betty Ford Story		 Emmy Award - Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
for Foxfire
1988		 Succeeded by
Holly Hunter
for Roe vs. Wade
Preceded by
Melanie Griffith
for Working Girl		 Golden Globe Award - Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Driving Miss Daisy
1989		 Succeeded by
Julia Roberts
for Pretty Woman
Preceded by
Pauline Collins
for Shirley Valentine		 BAFTA Award - Best Actress
for Driving Miss Daisy
1989		 Succeeded by
Jodie Foster
for The Silence of the Lambs
Preceded by
Jodie Foster
for The Accused		 Academy Award - Best Actress
for Driving Miss Daisy
1989		 Succeeded by
Kathy Bates
for Misery

References

  1. ^ Jessica Tandy's family to unveil plaque to commemorate star's Hackney birthplace 19 Nov 1998 accessed 10 May 2007
  2. ^ http://blog.oup.com/2007/02/the_academy_awa/

External links

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Academy Award for Best Actress

Katharine Hepburn (1981) · Meryl Streep (1982) · Shirley MacLaine(1983) · Sally Field (1984) · Geraldine Page (1985) · Marlee Matlin (1986) · Cher (1987) · Jodie Foster (1988) · Jessica Tandy (1989) · Kathy Bates (1990) · Jodie Foster (1991) · Emma Thompson (1992) · Holly Hunter (1993) · Jessica Lange (1994) · Susan Sarandon (1995) · Frances McDormand (1996) · Helen Hunt (1997) · Gwyneth Paltrow (1998) · Hilary Swank (1999) · Julia Roberts (2000)

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