Edna May Oliver

Edna May Oliver

Born: November 8, 1883
Died: November 9, 1942
in Malden, Massachusetts, USA
Edna May Oliver (November 9, 1883 – November 9, 1942) was an American stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the best-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters.

​She was born Edna May Nutter in Malden, Massachusetts. The daughter of Ida May and Charles Edward Nutter, Edna was a descendant of the 6th American president John Quincy Adams. Miss Oliver took an early interest in the stage, and she would quit school at the age of 14 to pursue her ambitions in the theater.

Despite abandoning traditional schooling, Edna continued to study the performing arts, including speech and piano. One of her first jobs was as pianist with an all female orchestra which toured America around the turn of the century. By 1917 she had achieved success on Broadway in the hit play "Oh, Boy". By 1923 she had appeared in her first film. Edna May Oliver seems to have been born to play the classics of American and British literature. Some of her most memorable film roles were in adaptations of works of Charles Dickens. Although some have described her as plain or "horse faced", Edna May Oliver's comedic talents lent a beautiful droll warmth to her characters. She was usually called upon to play less glamorous roles such as a spinsters, but she played them with such soul, wit, and depth that to this day she remains one of the best loved of Hollywood's character actresses. A fine example of her comedic talent can be found in Laugh and Get Rich (1931). Here we find her playing a role almost autobiographical in nature, that of a proud woman with Boston roots who has married "down". As the plot unwinds, she is invited to a society gala despite her modest circumstances. At the gala she becomes tipsy. With a frolicsome air Edna May seems to use the role to gently mock her real self. Her slightly drunk character seizes upon a bit of flattery, and alluding to her old New England family, proudly proclaims to each who will listen, "I am a Cranston. That explains everything!". In real life, Edna May Oliver was a Nutter, and perhaps that explains everything.

Edna May Oliver married stock broker David Pratt in 1928, but the marriage ended in divorce five years later. In 1939 she received an Oscar nomination for her supporting role as Widow McKlennar in the picture Drums Along the Mohawk (1939). That was to be one of her last films. Miss Oliver was struck ill in August of 1942. Although she seemed to recover briefly, she was re-admitted to Los Angeles's Cedars of Lebanon hospital in October Her dear friend actress Virginia Hammond flew out from New York to stay by her bedside. Edna May Oliver died on her 59th birthday, 9th November 1942. Virginia Hammond was with her and said, "She died without ever being aware of the gravity of her condition. She just went peacefully asleep."

Movies for Edna May Oliver...

Clara Bow: Discovering the It Girl
Title: Clara Bow: Discovering the It Girl
Character: Self (from The Saturday Night Kid [1929]) (archive footage)
Released: June 14, 1999
Type: Movie
Clara Bow: Discovering the 'It' Girl features scenes from 25 of her films, as well as interviews with family members and acquaintances.
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Lydia
Title: Lydia
Character: Sarah MacMillan
Released: September 18, 1941
Type: Movie
Lydia MacMillan, a wealthy woman who has never married, invites several men her own age to her home to reminisce about the times when they were young and courted her. In memory, each romance seemed splendid and destined for happiness, but in each case, Lydia realizes, the truth was less romantic, and ill-starred.
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Pride and Prejudice
Title: Pride and Prejudice
Character: Lady Catherine de Bourgh
Released: July 26, 1940
Type: Movie
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five unmarried daughters, and Mrs. Bennet is especially eager to find suitable husbands for them. When the rich single gentlemen Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy come to live nearby, the Bennets have high hopes. But pride, prejudice and misunderstandings all combine to complicate their relationships and to make happiness difficult.
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Drums Along the Mohawk
Title: Drums Along the Mohawk
Character: Mrs. Mc Klennar
Released: November 10, 1939
Type: Movie
Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosperity and happiness are threatened by the sinister sound of drums that announce dark times of revolution and war.
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Nurse Edith Cavell
Title: Nurse Edith Cavell
Character: Countess de Mavon
Released: August 31, 1939
Type: Movie
British nurse Edith Cavell is stationed at a hospital in Brussels during World War I. When the son of a former patient escapes from a German prisoner-of-war camp, she helps him flee to Holland. Outraged at the number of soldiers detained in the camps, Edith, along with a group of sympathizers, devises a plan to help the prisoners escape. As the group works to free the soldiers, Edith must keep her activities secret from the Germans
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Second Fiddle
Title: Second Fiddle
Character: Aunt Phoebe
Released: June 30, 1939
Type: Movie
Studio publicist discovers Minnesota skating teacher and takes her to Hollywood. She goes back to Minnesota but he follows her.
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The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
Title: The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
Character: Maggie Sutton
Released: March 29, 1939
Type: Movie
In 1911, minor stage comic, Vernon Castle meets the stage-struck Irene Foote. A few misadventures later, they marry and then abandon comedy to attempt a dancing career together. While they're performing in Paris, an agent sees them rehearse and starts them on their brilliant career as the world's foremost ballroom dancers. However, at the height of their fame, World War I begins.
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Little Miss Broadway
Title: Little Miss Broadway
Character: Sarah Wendling
Released: July 29, 1938
Type: Movie
An orphan is provisionally adopted by the manager of a hotel populated by show business people. The hotel's owner doesn't like the entertainers and wants the girl returned to the orphanage.
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Paradise for Three
Title: Paradise for Three
Character: Mrs. Kunkel
Released: June 4, 1938
Type: Movie
A businessman mingles with German laborers to learn more about their lives.
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Rosalie
Title: Rosalie
Character: Queen of Romanza
Released: December 24, 1937
Type: Movie
West Point cadet Dick Thorpe falls in love with a girl, who turns out to be a princess from an European kingdom.
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My Dear Miss Aldrich
Title: My Dear Miss Aldrich
Character: Mrs. Atherton
Released: September 17, 1937
Type: Movie
A young woman inherits a newspaper whose editor refuses to hire lady reporters.
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Parnell
Title: Parnell
Character: Aunt Ben Wood
Released: June 4, 1937
Type: Movie
Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his relationship with married Katie O'Shea threatens to ruin all his dreams of freedom.
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Romeo and Juliet
Title: Romeo and Juliet
Character: Juliet's Nurse
Released: September 3, 1936
Type: Movie
Young love is poisoned by a generations long feud between two noble families.
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A Tale of Two Cities
Title: A Tale of Two Cities
Character: Miss Pross
Released: December 25, 1935
Type: Movie
The exciting story of Dr. Manette, who escapes the horrors of the infamous Bastille prison in Paris. The action switches between London and Paris on the eve of the revolution where we witness 'the best of times and the worst of times' - love, hope, the uncaring French Aristocrats and the terror of a revolutionary citizen's army intent on exacting revenge.
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No More Ladies
Title: No More Ladies
Character: Fanny 'Grandma' Townsend
Released: June 14, 1935
Type: Movie
A society girl tries to reform her playboy husband by making him jealous.
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Murder on a Honeymoon
Title: Murder on a Honeymoon
Character: Hildegarde Withers
Released: February 22, 1935
Type: Movie
A schoolteacher and amateur sleuth suspects foul play when a fellow passenger on a seaplane gets sick and dies. The third and final film with Edna May Oliver and James Gleason as the astute schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers and the New York Police Inspector Oscar Piper busy solving crimes.
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David Copperfield
Title: David Copperfield
Character: Aunt Betsey Trotwood
Released: January 18, 1935
Type: Movie
Charles Dickens' timeless tale of an ordinary young man who lives an extraordinary life, filled with people who help and hinder him.
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We're Rich Again
Title: We're Rich Again
Character: Maude Stanley
Released: July 13, 1934
Type: Movie
A polo-playing grandmother and her broke brood get back in the money with a Wall Street bet.
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Murder on the Blackboard
Title: Murder on the Blackboard
Character: Hildegarde Withers
Released: June 15, 1934
Type: Movie
There are plenty of guilty secrets at the school where Hildegarde Withers teaches. When she finds the body of the pretty music teacher, she calls in her old friend Inspector Piper, who promptly arrests the obvious suspect. Clues multiply and everyone looks suspicious as Piper and Miss Withers continue their battle of the sexes.
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The Last Gentleman
Title: The Last Gentleman
Character: Augusta Pritchard, Cabot's sister
Released: April 27, 1934
Type: Movie
In New England circa 1933, a niece is reported missing and presumed dead and Cabot Barr (George Arliss) summons his relatives to the family estate for a memorial service. Once there, Barr taunts each one, claiming their only interest in him is his money, and sends them away when the report about the niece proves to be false. Only niece Marjorie, who has ridiculed one of his pet eccentricities, seems to be the object of any sentimental affection.
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The Poor Rich
Title: The Poor Rich
Character: Harriet Spottiswood
Released: February 25, 1934
Type: Movie
Albert Stuyvesant Spottiswood and his cousin Harriet Winthrop Spottiswood arrive separately at their long abandoned and very much run down family manor, each unaware that the other is going to be there, and since both have become penniless, they are forced to move into the dilapidated house. When Albert receives a letter from old acquaintances Lord and Lady Fetherstone advising the Spottiswoods of their impending visit to the manor, the cousins are at wit's end as to how to exercise non-existent skills required to make the old house acceptable for guest reception.
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Alice in Wonderland
Title: Alice in Wonderland
Character: Red Queen
Released: December 18, 1933
Type: Movie
In Victorian England, a bored young girl dreams that she has entered a fantasy world called Wonderland, populated by even more fantastic characters.
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Little Women
Title: Little Women
Character: Aunt March
Released: November 24, 1933
Type: Movie
Little Women is a coming-of-age drama tracing the lives of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. During the American Civil War, the girls father is away serving as a minister to the troops. The family, headed by their beloved Marmee, must struggle to make ends meet, with the help of their kind and wealthy neighbor, Mr. Laurence, and his high spirited grandson Laurie.
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Only Yesterday
Title: Only Yesterday
Character: Leona
Released: November 1, 1933
Type: Movie
On the back of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, a young business man is about to commit suicide. With the note to his wife scribbled down and a gun in his hand, he notices a thick envelope addressed to him at the desk. As he begin to read, we're taken back to the days of WW1 and his meeting with a young woman named Mary Lane.
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Meet the Baron
Title: Meet the Baron
Character: Dean Primrose
Released: October 20, 1933
Type: Movie
A charlatan posing as Baron Munchhausen is invited to be guest speaker at a girls' school.
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Ann Vickers
Title: Ann Vickers
Character: Malvina Wormser
Released: September 26, 1933
Type: Movie
After a love affair ending in an abortion, a young prison reformer submerges herself in her work. She then falls for a controversial and married judge and scandal looms again.
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It's Great to Be Alive
Title: It's Great to Be Alive
Character: Dr. Prodwell
Released: July 8, 1933
Type: Movie
An aviator who crash landed on an island in the South Pacific returns home to find that he is the last fertile man left on Earth after an epidemic of masculitus.
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The Great Jasper
Title: The Great Jasper
Character: Madame Talma
Released: March 3, 1933
Type: Movie
Generational saga about a failed streetcar conductor, who finds success as an Atlantic City fortune teller, and his son. Drama.
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Penguin Pool Murder
Title: Penguin Pool Murder
Character: Miss Hildegarde Martha Withers
Released: December 9, 1932
Type: Movie
New York schoolmarm Hildegarde Withers assists a detective when a body of unscrupulous stockbroker Gerald Parker suddenly appears in the penguin tank at the aquarium.
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The Conquerors
Title: The Conquerors
Character: Matilda Blake
Released: November 18, 1932
Type: Movie
A newlywed couple journeys west to make their fortune, and begins a banking empire.
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Hold 'Em Jail
Title: Hold 'Em Jail
Character: Violet Jones
Released: August 19, 1932
Type: Movie
Two yokels are framed and sent to prison, but wind up playing football on the warden's championship team.
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Ladies of the Jury
Title: Ladies of the Jury
Character: Mrs. Livingston Baldwin Crane
Released: February 2, 1932
Type: Movie
Society matron Mrs. Livingston Baldwin Crane is selected as a juror in the trial of former chorus girl Yvette Gordon, who's accused of murdering her rich older husband. In court and during deliberations, Mrs. Crane proves to be a disruptive and unorthodox juror.
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Fanny Foley Herself
Title: Fanny Foley Herself
Character: Fanny Foley
Released: October 9, 1931
Type: Movie
A vaudeville performer has trouble dividing her time equally between her career and her two daughters.
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Newly Rich
Title: Newly Rich
Character: Bessie Tate
Released: July 2, 1931
Type: Movie
Two small town widows bring their children to Hollywood, where their children become competing film stars. The girl is sweet, the boy is a killjoy sissy. For publicity, the rival families go to London to meet a middle European boy King. The three kids decide they need to escape their stifling lives and run away to the docks and join a gang.
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Cracked Nuts
Title: Cracked Nuts
Character: Aunt Minnie Van Varden
Released: April 18, 1931
Type: Movie
To impress his fiancee's aunt, a young man tries to become king in a small kingdom, but the people there have already crowned one, who has won this honor by gambling. So he plans a coup d'etat. He tries to achieve this with a bomb, but then something goes wrong...
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Laugh and Get Rich
Title: Laugh and Get Rich
Character: Sarah Cranston Austin
Released: March 27, 1931
Type: Movie
An inept inventor and his stoic wife believe an oil well investment has paid off and that they've become wealthy overnight.
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Cimarron
Title: Cimarron
Character: Mrs. Tracy Wyatt
Released: January 26, 1931
Type: Movie
When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes a leading citizen of the boom town of Osage. Once the town is established, however, he begins to feel confined once again, and heads for the Cherokee Strip, leaving his family behind. During this and other absences, his wife Sabra must learn to take care of herself and soon becomes prominent in her own right.
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Half Shot at Sunrise
Title: Half Shot at Sunrise
Character: Mrs. Marshall
Released: September 19, 1930
Type: Movie
Two soldiers go absent without leave in Paris during World War I.
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The Saturday Night Kid
Title: The Saturday Night Kid
Character: Miss Streeter
Released: October 25, 1929
Type: Movie
Mayme and sister Janie are salesgirls in Ginsberg's Department Store. Mayme is in love with store clerk Bill, but Janie tries to steal him from her. Hazel, another salesgirl, is Jean Harlow's first credited role.
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Let's Get Married
Title: Let's Get Married
Character: J.W. Smith
Released: March 1, 1926
Type: Movie
College football star Billy Dexter is prone to getting into public fights. His father demands he reform and sends him to mend his ways with a devout old woman who deals in hymnals. She turns out to be devoutly drunk and a saloon brawler, leading to Billy's imprisonment. He tells his fiancée he's doing missionary work on a pacific island. He escapes and persuades her to marry him, all the while dodging the police who pursue him.
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The American Venus
Title: The American Venus
Character: Mrs. Niles
Released: January 31, 1926
Type: Movie
A lost film - Mary Gray, whose father manufactures cold cream, is engaged to sappy Horace Niles, the son of Hugo Niles, the elder Gray's most competitive rival in the cosmetics business. Chip Armstrong, a hot-shot public relations man, quits the employ of Hugo Niles and goes to work for Gray, persuading Mary to enter the Miss America contest at Atlantic City, with the intention of using her to endorse her father's cold cream should she win. Mary breaks her engagement with Horace. When it appears that she will win the contest, Hugo lures her home on the pretext that her father is ill, and she misses the contest. Chip and Mary return to Atlantic City, discovering that the new Miss America has told the world that she owes all her success to Gray's cold cream. On this note, Chip and Mary decide to get married.
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Lovers in Quarantine
Title: Lovers in Quarantine
Character: Amelia Pincent
Released: October 11, 1925
Type: Movie
Lovers in Quarantine is an extant 1925 silent film comedy starring Bebe Daniels and directed by Frank Tuttle. It was produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. the film is based on a 1924 Broadway play Quarantine by F. Tennyson Jesse. It is preserved at the Library of Congress.
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The Lucky Devil
Title: The Lucky Devil
Character: Mrs. McDee
Released: July 13, 1925
Type: Movie
Richard Dix, a displayer in a department store, enters a raffle and wins the so-called 'hoodoo' bad-luck automobile formerly owned by the store owner's son, a soul seemingly always in trouble with cops and women. Well, suddenly Dix begins to have the same problem, only he also gets mixed up in the life of Esther Ralston and her Aunt Edna May Oliver. Hilarious misunderstandings and undertakings become the fodder for the day!
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The Lady Who Lied
Title: The Lady Who Lied
Released: July 12, 1925
Type: Movie
During a carnival in Venice, Horace Pierpont, a wealthy American (Lewis Stone), falls in love with Fay Kennion (Virginia Valli). Their romance is derailed when she goes over to his apartment and finds the vampy Fifi (Nita Naldi) there. Fay goes down to Algiers, where she marries a former sweetheart, Dr. Alan Mortimer (Edward Earle).
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Manhattan
Title: Manhattan
Character: Mrs. Trapes
Released: October 28, 1924
Type: Movie
A wealthy New Yorker falls in love with a burglar's sister.
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Icebound
Title: Icebound
Character: Hannah
Released: March 2, 1924
Type: Movie
Ben Jordan runs away after accidentally setting fire to a barn in his small New England community. He returns when his mother dies to find that she has left everything to her ward, Jane Crosby.
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Restless Wives
Title: Restless Wives
Character: Benson's Secretary
Released: January 6, 1924
Type: Movie
1924 picture directed by Gregory La Cava.
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Three O'Clock in the Morning
Title: Three O'Clock in the Morning
Character: Hetty
Released: December 1, 1923
Type: Movie
Impulsive flapper Elizabeth Winthrop, rebels against her parents and moves to New York after breaking with her fiance, Clayton Webster. Hugo Von Strohm, a wealthy playboy, procures Elizabeth a job as a chorus dancer and secretly pays her salary. After he tries to seduce her, Elizabeth sees through his kindnesses and returns to her parents and Clayton.
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Wife in Name Only
Title: Wife in Name Only
Character: Mrs. Dornham
Released: August 25, 1923
Type: Movie
Wealthy orphan Philippa L'Estrange loves handsome Norman Arleigh and is confident of marrying him until he discloses that he has only brotherly affection for her. Determined to have revenge, Philippa introduces Arleigh to Madeline Dornham and reveals on their wedding day that Madeline, his bride, is the daughter of the man who killed his mother. In the end it is learned that Madeline is Mrs. Dornham's daughter from a previous marriage, not the daughter of a criminal.