Gale Sondergaard
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| Gale Sondergaard | |
 in the trailer for The Letter (1940) |
|
| Birth name | Edith Holm Sondergaard |
| Born | February 15, 1899 Litchfield, Minnesota, USA |
| Died | August 14, 1985 Woodland Hills, California, USA |
| Academy Awards | |
|---|---|
| Best Supporting Actress 1936 Anthony Adverse |
|
Gale Sondergaard (February 15, 1899 – August 14, 1985) was an Academy Award-winning U.S. film actress. In 1936, she was the first actress to ever be awarded an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
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[edit] Early life
Edith Holm Sondergaard was born in Litchfield, Minnesota to Danish parents. She studied acting at the Minneapolis School of Dramatic Arts before joining the John Keller Shakespeare Company. She later toured North America in productions of Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and Macbeth.
[edit] Career
Sondergaard made her first film appearance in Anthony Adverse as "Faith Paleologue" and became the first recipient of the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for this performance. Her career as an actress flourished during the 1930s, including a role opposite Paul Muni in Academy Award-winning The Life of Emile Zola.
Walt Disney Studios used her as the main inspiration for the Wicked Queen in the animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Originally cast as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939), she was replaced by Margaret Hamilton when MGM decided to change the Wicked Witch from a glamorous character to an ugly one, and Sondergaard refused to wear the necessary disfiguring makeup.
In 1940 she played the role with which she is perhaps most identified, the exotic and sinister wife in The Letter, supporting Bette Davis. She received a second Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role as the King's wife in Anna and the King of Siam in 1946.
[edit] Private life
Married to the film director Herbert Joseph Biberman from 1930, her career suffered irreparable damage during the Red Scare of the early 1950s, when her husband was accused of being a communist and named as one of the Hollywood Ten. With her career stalled, she supported her husband during the production of Salt of the Earth (1954). Highly controversial when it was made, and not a commercial success, its artistic and cultural merit was recognised in 1992 when the National Film Preservation Board selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Sondergaard and Biberman sold their home in Hollywood shortly after they completed Salt of the Earth, and moved to New York where Sondergaard was able to work in theatre. Biberman died in 1971, and Sondergaard made a few more film and television appearances, before dying from cerebral vascular thrombosis in Woodland Hills, California at the age of 86. She had 2 children; Joan Kirstine Biberman (2 children; Joseph Augustine Daniel Campos and Jennifer Gale Campos) and Daniel Hans Biberman; no children.
[edit] Selected Filmography
Sondergaard acted in over 40 films in 5 decades.
- Anthony Adverse (1936) (Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress)
- The Life of Emile Zola (1937) (Best Picture in 1937)
- Sons of Liberty (1939)
- Juarez (1939)
- The Mark of Zorro (1940)
- The Letter (1940)
- The Black Cat (1941)
- A Night to Remember (1958)
- The Spider Woman (1944)
- Anna and the King of Siam (1946) (Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress)
- Road to Rio (1947)
- East Side, West Side (1949)
- Savage Intruder (1968)
- Slaves (1969)
- Visions (segment called "Pleasantville") (1976)
- The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976)
- Echoes (1983)
| Preceded by — |
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress 1936 for Anthony Adverse |
Succeeded by Alice Brady for In Old Chicago |
[edit] External links
