Jane Darwell
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| Jane Darwell | |
 in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) |
|
| Birth name | Patti Woodard |
| Born | October 15, 1879 Palmyra, Missouri, USA |
| Died | August 13, 1967 Woodland Hills, California, USA |
| Academy Awards | |
|---|---|
| Best Supporting Actress 1940 The Grapes of Wrath |
|
Jane Darwell (October 15, 1879 – August 13, 1967) was an Academy Award-winning American theater and film actress.
Darwell was born Patti Woodard in Palmyra, Missouri. She originally intended to become a circus performer, however her family objected and she compromised by becoming an actress.
She began her acting career in theater productions in Chicago and made her first film appearance in 1913. She appeared in almost twenty films over the next two years before returning to the stage. After a 15 year absence from films, she resumed her film career in 1930 with a role in Tom Sawyer, and her career as a Hollywood character actress began. Short, stout and plain faced she was quickly cast in a succession of films usually as the mother of one of the major characters.
She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as "Ma Joad" in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), a role she was given at the insistence of the film's star, Henry Fonda. A contract player with 20th Century Fox, Darwell occasionally starred in "B" movies and played featured parts in scores of major films.
By the end of her career she had appeared in more than 170 films, including Huckleberry Finn (1931), Roman Scandals (1933), Jesse James, The Rains Came, Gone with the Wind (all 1939), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), My Darling Clementine (1946), Three Godfathers (1948) and Caged (1950).
Always popular within the film industry, her final role as the old woman feeding the birds in Mary Poppins was personally given to her by Walt Disney.
Darwell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6735 Hollywood Boulevard.
Darwell died from a heart attack in Woodland Hills, California at the age of 87, and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
| Preceded by Hattie McDaniel for Gone with the Wind |
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress 1940 for The Grapes of Wrath |
Succeeded by Mary Astor for The Great Lie |
