Harriet E. MacGibbon

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Harriet E. MacGibbon (October 5, 1905 – February 8, 1987) was an American actress.

She was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Walter Peter McGibbon (born April 1872) and Gertrude L. Crary (born December 1864). Harriet's father was a physician. It is not clear why she added an "a" to her surname, but she was credited a few times as McGibbon.

She was "finished" at Knox School, Cooperstown, New York, where she prepared for Vassar. Without staying to receive a diploma, she left to fulfill her desire for the footlights and studied with Franklin H. Sargent at his American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

MacGibbon joined the stock company of Edward Clarke Lilley at Akron, Ohio. She then went to San Francisco and played leading roles for Henry Duffy. In Louisville, Kentucky, she acted with Wilton Lackaye, Edmund Breese, William Faversham, Tom Wise and Nance O'Neil. There were regular productions, including Ned McCobb's Daughter, The Front Page, The Big Fight, and a "transcontinental tour" starring MacGibbon in The Big Fight, which began in Boston, took in New Haven and Hartford, and ended at Caine's storehouse. Jack Dempsey was also in the cast.

During that time, MacGibbon stopped off in Boston long enough to study the harp with Alfred Holy, harpist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She later said that when she gave up the instrument, Mr. Holy, "with unconscious humor," remarked, "What a pity, Miss MacGibbon, you look so lovely with a harp."

She also had a long and distinguished career on the Broadway stage, beginning in 1925 at the age of nineteen when she acted in the play Beggar on Horseback at the Shubert Theatre. In the late 1930s, she did You Can't Take It With You, the Pulitzer Prize winning comedy, at the Biltmore Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles.

MacGibbon had two husbands, William R. Kane (divorced) and Charles Corwin White, II. The second marriage ended with his death on December 25, 1967.

She and Kane had one son, William MacGibbon Kane (February 2, 1933-April 2, 1977).

She made numerous guest appearances on television starting in 1950, but appeared in only five theatrical motion pictures, including Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962), which was directed by Vincente Minnelli and starred Glenn Ford, Ingrid Thulin, Charles Boyer and Lee J. Cobb.

Unlike her stage roles, MacGibbon's movie and TV roles usually consisted of snooty society ladies, which includes her well known role of Mrs. Margaret Drysdale in the long-running hit TV sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies.

Harriet E. MacGibbon died at the age of eighty-one of pulmonary and cardiac failure. She was cremated and her ashes are in niche 61046, Columbarium of Remembrance, Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery, Los Angeles, California.

Contents

[edit] Filmography

  • Cry for Happy (1961) (Columbia) ... Mrs. Bennett
  • A Majority of One (1962) (Warner Bros.) ... Mrs. Putnam (credited as Harriet MacGibbon)
  • Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) (Metro-Goldwin-Mayer) ... Dona Luisa Desnoyers (credited as Harriet MacGibbon)
  • Son of Flubber (1963) (Disney) ... Mrs. Edna Daggett (credited as Harriet MacGibbon)
  • Fluffy (1965) (Universal) ... Mrs. Claridge (credited as Harriet MacGibbon)

[edit] Made-for-TV Filmography

  • Wacky Zoo of Morgan City (1970) (Disney) ... Mrs. Westerfield
  • The Judge and Jake Wyler (1972) (Universal TV) ... Hostess
  • The Best Place to Be (1979) (Ross Hunter Productions)

[edit] TV series - regular

[edit] External links

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