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Sarah Edwards

Sarah Edwards

Actor · 1881 – 1965 · Glyn Ceiriog, Denbighshire, Wales

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sarah Edwards (October 11, 1881 – January 7, 1965) was a Welsh-born American film and stage actress. She often played dowagers or spinsters in numerous Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s, mostly in minor roles. Edwards started her acting career as a stage actress, she was described in 1916 by a newspaper article as a leading actress "very popular with West End theatre-goers".[1] She eventually settled in the United States and appeared in six Broadway plays between 1919 and 1931, primarily in comedies like The Merry Malones by George M. Cohan. Among her first movies was the New York-filmed 1929 musical Glorifying the American Girl (1929), where she portrayed the mercenary mother of leading actress Mary Eaton. She came to Hollywood in the mid-1930s where she appeared in about 190 films until her retirement 1951, mostly in uncredited, small character roles. Sarah Edwards died in Hollywood in 1965, aged 83. Edwards seemed older than she was and often portrayed a "kindly grandmother, imperious dowager, hardy pioneer wife, ill-tempered teacher and strict governess". She remains perhaps best-known to modern audiences as the imperious mother of Mary Hatch (Donna Reed) in Frank Capra's film classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946) who tries to keep her daughter away from George Bailey. Edwards also played a customer in Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940) with James Stewart. She also appeared in another Christmas classic, The Bishop's Wife (1947) with Cary Grant, and as the wife of a doctor on the train in Hitchcock's thriller Shadow of a Doubt (1943). Edwards sometimes also portrayed more substantial roles, for instance in the Charlie Chan movie Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944).

Movies24

  • Movie8.3

    It's a Wonderful Life

    1946 · 5.1K votes

  • Movie7.5

    Shadow of a Doubt

    1943 · 1.2K votes

  • Movie8.1
  • Movie7.1

    The Bishop's Wife

    1947 · 287 votes

  • Movie5.9

    Bathing Beauty

    1944 · 33 votes

  • Movie7.2

    The Awful Truth

    1937 · 369 votes

  • Movie5.9

    Undercurrent

    1946 · 53 votes

  • Movie6.3

    The Walking Dead

    1936 · 97 votes

  • Movie6.3

    The Cowboy and the Lady

    1938 · 29 votes

  • Movie6.7
  • Movie7.2

    The Corn Is Green

    1945 · 39 votes

  • Movie6.6

    Strike Up the Band

    1940 · 27 votes

  • Movie6.9

    I Wake Up Screaming

    1941 · 81 votes

  • Movie6.1

    The Fuller Brush Girl

    1950 · 11 votes

  • Movie5.7

    The Invisible Woman

    1940 · 89 votes

  • Movie6.3

    Wayward

    1932 · 3 votes

  • Movie6.5

    The Face Behind the Mask

    1941 · 48 votes

  • Movie6.8

    Rings on Her Fingers

    1942 · 15 votes

  • Movie7.0

    Merrily We Live

    1938 · 41 votes

  • Movie6.5

    The Verdict

    1946 · 52 votes

  • Movie7.1

    H.M. Pulham, Esq.

    1941 · 11 votes

  • Movie6.2

    Carson City

    1952 · 20 votes

  • Movie5.3

    Young People

    1940 · 10 votes

  • Movie6.9

    American Madness

    1932 · 49 votes