Zeffie Tilbury
Zeffie Tilbury | |
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| File:Zeffie Tilbury.jpg Zeffie Tilbury | |
| Born | Zeffie Agnes Lydia Tilbury November 20, 1863 Paddington, Middlesex, England |
| Died | July 24, 1950 (aged 86) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Years active | 1917–1942 |
| Spouse(s) | L. E. Woodthorpe (?–1915) (his death) Arthur Frederick Lewis (1887–?) |
Zeffie Agnes Lydia Tilbury (November 20, 1863 – July 24, 1950) was an English actress.[1][2]
Personal Life
Zeffie Tilbury was the daughter of the variety performer Lydia Thompson and John Christian Tilbury, a riding-master, who died in a steeplechasing accident in 1864, when he was rolled on by his horse.[3]
Tilbury was married twice. First to Arthur Frederick Lewis in June, 1887, and later to L. E. Woodthorpe, who died on April 8, 1915. She died in Los Angeles, California in 1950 at the age of 86.[4]
Career
Born in Paddington, Middlesex, England Tilbury was known first on the London stage and on the Broadway in New York.[5] She is today best-known for playing wise or evil older characters in films, such as the distinguished lady gambler at dinner with Garbo in The Single Standard, as the pitiful Grandma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath and Grandma Lester in Tobacco Road.
She appeared in over 70 films.[4] Her earliest surviving silent film is the Valentino/Nazimova 1921 production of Camille. Tilbury is probably best remembered as the old lady who is befriended by Spanky and his friends on her birthday and, as a result, is transformed from a lonely, disagreeable recluse to a happy and loving carefree soul in the 1936 Hal Roach Our Gang comedy Second Childhood. In the same year she also portrayed the Gypsy Queen in the Laurel and Hardy film The Bohemian Girl.
Selected filmography
- Blind Man's Lucky (1917)
- The Avalanche (1919)
- Clothes (1920)
- The Single Standard (1929)
- Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)
- Mistery Liner (1934)
- Werewolf of London (1935)
- Desire (1936)
- The Bohemian Girl (1936)
- Anthony Adverse (1936)
- Second Childhood (1936)
- Maid of Salem (1937)
- Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1939)
- Balalaika (1939)
- Tell No Tales (1939)
- The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
- Tobacco Road (1941)
References
- ^ Zeffie Tilbury profile at Probert Encyclopedia
- ^ Zeffie Tilbury profile at Cinemorgue
- ^ Gänzl, Kurt. Lydia Thompson in Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre, Blackwell/Schirmer (1994)
- ^ a b Zeffie Tilbury, The Internet Movie Database
- ^ "Classical Plays: Souvenirs and Portraits", Rob Wilton Theatricalia
External links
- Zeffie Tilbury at IMDb
- Zeffie Tilbury at the Internet Broadway Database
- Zeffie Tilbury portrait at NYP Library
- Zeffie Tilbury at Find a Grave
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