Cathleen Nesbitt


Cathleen Nesbitt

Cathleen Nesbitt as Aunt Alicia in Gigi
Born Cathleen Mary Nesbitt
24 November 1888(1888-11-24)
Cheshire, England
Died 2 August 1982 (aged 93)
London, England
Occupation actress
Years active 1919 - 1981
Spouse(s) Cecil Ramage
(1920-1982)
Domestic partner(s) Rupert Brooke

Cathleen Nesbitt, CBE (24 November 1888 – 2 August 1982) was an English actress of Welsh and Irish extraction[citation needed].

Born in Cheshire, England, she was educated in Lisieux, France and attended the Queen's University of Belfast, and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. Her younger brother, Thomas Nesbitt, Jr., acted in one film in 1925, before his death in South Africa in 1927 from an apparent heart attack.

Her debut on the London stage was in the revival of Pinero's The Cabinet Minister (1910). She acted in countless plays after that.

In 1911, Nesbitt joined the Irish Players, went to the United States and debuted on Broadway in The Well of the Saints. She also was in the cast of John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World with the Irish Players when the whole cast was pelted with fruits and vegetables by the offended Irish American Catholic audience.

She became the love of English poet Rupert Brooke in 1912, who wrote great love sonnets to her. They were engaged to be married when he died during World War I. Nesbitt returned to the U.S. and appeared on Broadway in Quinneys (1915) and Galsworthy's Justice (1916) as John Barrymore's leading lady in his first dramatic stage role. After five other plays there, she returned to England. For the rest of the decade she performed in London; her roles included the title role in a revival of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi.

Her film debut was in the silent A Star Over Night (1919). She then performed in The Faithful Heart (1922). She did not appear in a film again until 1930, when she played the role of Anne Lymes in Canaries Sometimes Sing, which was an early talkie. She appeared in the 1938 film version of Pygmalion as "a lady" who attends the Embassy ball. In the opening credits her name is spelled with a "K" but the correct spelling comes at the end of the film.

Nesbitt's first Hollywood film was Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), in which she played the character role of La Principessa. This was followed that same year by Black Widow, in which she played a maid named Lucia Colletti. She was Cary Grant's Grandmother Janou in 1957's An Affair to Remember and, the following year, was part of the ensemble cast of Separate Tables. She also appeared in The Parent Trap (1961), and Promise Her Anything (1965).

Her other Broadway productions included Gigi (1951), Sabrina Fair (1953), and Anastasia (1954). In 1956, she played Mrs. Higgins in My Fair Lady starring Rex Harrison. Nesbitt reprised the role in 1981, when in her in 90s, in a Broadway revival also starring Rex Harrison, who had also appeared in the original Broadway show (and the 1964 film).

She is probably best-remembered by Americans for her role as Agatha Morley on the TV series The Farmer's Daughter from 1963 to 1966, playing the mother of a Congressman (played by William Windom). She guest starred on such shows as The United States Steel Hour; Wagon Train; Naked City, Dr. Kildare and Upstairs, Downstairs(as Rachel Gurney's mother).

In 1969 she portrayed the mother of a homosexual in Staircase.

Nesbitt won an Emmy Award for her work in the TV drama The Mask of Love in 1974.

She played the film role of an elderly drug addict in French Connection II (1975). Her next film was Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), in which she played Julia Rainbird. She then appeared as the grandmother in Julia (1977). Her final film was Never, Never Land (1980), in which she played Edith Forbes.

She had one husband, the actor Cecil Ramage. They married in 1920 and remained legally married until Nesbitt's death in 1982 but were separated for many years. They had two children.

Nesbitt lived for many years in the United States, and considered taking out U.S. citizenship, but ultimately returned to the United Kingdom, where she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Her autobiography, entitled A Little Love and Good Company, was published in 1973.

After a career spanning over eighty years, one of the longest in show business history, Cathleen Nesbitt died at age 93 in London, on 2 August 1982.

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