Edith Evans

Edith Evans

Edith Evans was the greatest actress on the English stage in the 20th century, treading the boards for over half-a-century. She made her professional stage debut in 1912 and excelled in both classic and modern roles in the West End of London and on Broadway, as well as the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon and the Old Vic. She was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (the equivalent of a knighthood) in 1946. Laurence Olivier has written in his memoirs that Evans's power on stage began to falter in the early 1960s, as her memory dimmed with age. It was about this time that she made a transition to the screen, after generally ignoring the medium for the first two decades of talking films. (After making her movie debut in 1915, Evans appeared in no films at all between 1916 and 1949, when she came back to the screen in support of a young Richard Burton in Emlyn Williams's The Last Days of Dolwyn (1949).) In the 1950s, she had made memorable appearances in film in The Queen of Spades (1949), The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Fred Zinnemann's The Nun's Story (1959) (1959), and in Tony Richardson's film version of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1959), but it was her performance as Miss Western in Richardson's Oscar-winning Best Picture Tom Jones (1963) that established her as a major film presence. She won her first Oscar nomination for "Tom Jones", and her second the following year for The Chalk Garden (1964). She won a Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle Award as Best Actress for her performance as the frightened old lady in Bryan Forbes's The Whisperers (1967). The role also brought her a 1967 Oscar nomination for Best Actress, though she lost the trophy to Katharine Hepburn, who had recently lost her long-time lover Spencer Tracy and rode a wave of Hollywood sentiment to victory. Dame Edith Evans continued to act in films until her death, though the material generally was beneath her great talent. She died on October 14, 1976, at the age of 88.
Edith Fields

Edith Fields

A veteran of stage, screen and television, Edith Fields is the recipient of the prestigious Los Angeles Drama Critics Award, seven Drama Logue Awards and a KABC Year End Radio Award for her work in Los Angeles Theatre. She began her career at age 5, singing and dancing for community functions in her home town of Poughkeepsie, New York. She acted in college productions and continued to entertain in Army Hospitals with the U.S.O. Fields received her Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award (as well as a Drama Logue Award) for her work in the Theatre West Production of Like One Of The Family. Critical praise for her performance as Beth/Consuelo ranged from "dizzy and delightful" (Frontiers) to "a showstopper" (Hollywood Reporter). For her Drama Logue Award-Winning portrayal of Rose, the mother, in Nuts at the Las Palmas Theatre, the Los Angeles Times summed up the critics' opinion: "Edith Fields is splendid!" She won both the KABC Radio Award and Drama Logue Award for Avenue Of Dreams/Nothing Immediate (Company Of Angels), for which she was cited as "extraordinary" (Los Angeles Times). Additional Los Angeles stage credits include Death Of A Salesman (LATC), Beau Jet (Westwood Playhouse), Staccato (Tiffany Theatre), On Borrowed Time (La Mirada Theatre), Grown Ups (Mark Taper Forum), Street Dreams (Zephyr Theatre), Lovers And Other Strangers (Lee Strasberg Theatre), A.R. Gurney's Scenes From American Life (Skylight Theatre) and Michael Cristophers Pulitzer Prize-Winning Shadow Box (Theatre 40), among many others. In New York, Fields appeared both Off and Off-Off Broadway in The Subject Was Roses, A View From The Bridge, The Rimers Of Eldritch, Rites Of Passage, Spilt Milk, The Ward, Two Ladies Talking, Mother Love and The Poseur. Her film credits include Mr. Saturday Night (1992) with Billy Crystal, Dad (1989) with Jack Lemmon, No Way Out (1987) with Kevin Costner, 3 Men and a Little Lady (1990) with Tom Selleck, John Cassavetes Big Trouble (1986), Blake Edwards Micki + Maude (1984), William Friedkin Rampage (1987) and Renée Taylor and Joe Bolognas Love Is All There Is (1996). Movies for television include HBO's Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996) with Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd, Following Her Heart (1994) directed by Lee Grant, TNT's Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight (1994) with Diane Keaton, My First Love (1988) with Bea Arthur and The Rockford Files (1974) with James Garner. She has guest starred on numerous television series including Seinfeld (1989), Murphy Brown (1988), Picket Fences (1992), Caroline in the City (1995), L.A. Law (1986), Cagney & Lacey (1981), Brooklyn Bridge (1991) and Ned and Stacey (1995), among others. Fields graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts degree and went on to study with such legendary acting teachers as Stella Adler, Robert Lewis, Herbert Berghof and William Hickey. She is a member of the Actors Studio.

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