This page uses content from the Jessica Tandy biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.

Jessica Tandy, christened Jessie Alice Tandy (June 7, 1909 – September 11 1994) was a noted Academy Award-winning British-American theatre, film and TV actress.

Personal life

Tandy was born in London and she was educated at the Dame Alice Owen's School in Islington. She was married twice:

• 1) the British actor Jack Hawkins (1932-1942); one daughter Susan Hawkins (born 1934)
• 2) the Canadian-American actor, Hume Cronyn from 1942 until her death in 1994; two children - daughter Tandy Cronyn (also an actress), son Christopher Cronyn.

In 1990 she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which she battled fiercely for five years, during which time she continued to work. She had also been treated for angina and glaucoma previously.

Career

After an acting career spanning some sixty five years, Tandy found latter-day movie stardom in major-studio releases and intimate dramas alike. From a young age she was determined to be an actress, and first appeared on the London stage in 1926, playing, among others, Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier's Henry V, and Cordelia opposite John Gielgud's "King Lear". She also worked in British films. Following the end of her first marriage, she moved to New York and met Canadian actor Hume Cronyn, who became her second husband and frequent partner on stage and screen. She made her American film debut in The Seventh Cross (1944). She also appeared in The Valley of Decision (1945), The Green Years (1946, ironically enough as Cronyn's daughter!), and Forever Amber (1947). After her Tony-winning performance as Blanche DuBois in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, she concentrated on the stage and only appeared sporadically in films such as The Light in the Forest (1957) and The Birds (1963).

The beginning of the 1980s saw a resurgence in her film career, with character roles in The World According to Garp, Best Friends, Still of the Night (all 1982) and The Bostonians (1984), and the hit film Cocoon (1985), opposite Cronyn, with whom she reteamed for *Batteries not included (1987) and Cocoon: The Return (1988). She and Cronyn had been working together more and more, on stage and television, to continued acclaim, notably in 1987's Foxfire which won her an Emmy Award (recreating her Tony-winning Broadway role). However, it was her colorful performance in Driving Miss Daisy (1989), as an aging, stubborn Southern-Jewish matron, that made her a bonafide Hollywood star and earned her an Oscar. She was the oldest actor to ever win an Academy Award, beating out the late George Burns by less than a year.

She was chosen by People magazine as one of the fifty Most Beautiful People in the world in 1990, having the near-unique quality of increasing in beauty the older she got.

She subsequently earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work in the grass-roots hit Fried Green Tomatoes (1992), and co-starred in The Story Lady (1991 telefilm, with daughter Tandy Cronyn), Used People (1992, as Shirley MacLaine's Jewish mother), To Dance with the White Dog (1993 telefilm, with husband Hume Cronyn), Nobody's Fool (1994), and Camilla (also 1994, with Cronyn). Camilla was to be her last performance, and it was bold in one way that she, at the age of about eighty four and knowing that she was dying, had a brief nude scene, which could also be called "cheeky".

She died at home on September 11, 1994, in Easton, Connecticut, of ovarian cancer at the age of eighty five. Prior to moving to Connecticut, she lived with Cronyn for many years in nearby Pound Ridge, NY on land adjacent to their dear friends (and Cronyn's cousin), the producer Robert Whitehead and actress Zoe Caldwell.

Awards

Academy Award

• 1989 - Best Actress in a Leading Role, Driving Miss Daisy

British Film Award

• 1989 - Best Actress, Driving Miss Daisy

Emmy Award

• 1987 - Best Actress-Miniseries/Special, Foxfire

Golden Globe

• 1989 - Best Actress, Driving Miss Daisy

Sarah Siddons Award

• 1979 - Chicago theatre

Tony Award

• 1994 - Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement shared with her husband, Hume Cronyn
• 1982 - Best Actress, Foxfire,
• 1978 - Best Actress (Play), The Gin Game
• 1948 - Best Actress (Dramatic), A Streetcar Named Desire

Filmography

• The Indiscretions of Eve (1932)
• Murder in the Family (1938)
• The Seventh Cross (1944)
• Blonde Fever (1944)
• The Valley of Decision (1945)
• Dragonwyck (1946)
• The Green Years (1946)
• Forever Amber (1947)
• A Woman's Vengeance (1948)
• September Affair (1950)
• The Desert Fox (1951)
• The Light in the Forest (1958)
• Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962)
• The Birds (1963)
• Butley (1976)
• Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
• The World According to Garp (1982)
• Still of the Night (1982)
• Best Friends (1982)
• The Bostonians (1984)
• Cocoon (1985)
• *batteries not included (1987)
• The House on Carroll Street (1988)
• Cocoon: The Return (1988)
• Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
• Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)
• Used People (1992)
• A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
• Nobody's Fool (1994)
• Camilla (1994)

External links

• Movie Magazine International Tribute
• Jessica Tandy at IBDB
• NY Times September 12, 1994 Obituary

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.