Josephine Hutchinson

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Josephine Hutchinson (November 10, 1903 – June 4, 1998) was an American actress.

She was born in Seattle, Washington, and made her film debut at the age of thirteen. She later attended the Cornish School of Music and Drama, in Seattle, and then moved to New York City where she began acting in theater. She was pretty, confident, and by the late 1920s was one of the few who could make the transition from silent movies to talkies.

In 1926, Hutchinson, who was by this time married, met famous actress Eva Le Gallienne. By 1927, the two women were involved in a bisexual affair which caused her husband to file for divorce, citing Le Gallienne as his wife's "corespondent". The press quickly dubbed Hutchinson a shadow actress, which at the time meant lesbian. [1] Both actresses survived the scandal, however, and continued their careers, with Le Gallienne later that same year playing in Alison's Playhouse, which won a Pulitzer Prize. [2]

Hutchinson, while with Le Gallienne's "Civic Repertory Theater", won critical acclaim for her title role in Alice in Wonderland. She went to Hollywood in 1934, under contract from Warner Bros., debuting in Happiness Ahead, and was featured on the cover of Film Weekly on August 23, 1935. [3] She followed that first film up with The Story of Louis Pasteur in 1936. At Universal she played in one of her most memorable roles, along side actor Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff in Son of Frankenstein (1939). [4] [5] She later played "Mrs Townsend" in North by Northwest (1959), which starred actor Cary Grant and actress Eva Marie Saint, [6] and Love is Better Than Ever, starring Elizabeth Taylor. [7]

Hutchinson continued to work steadily through the 1970s in film and television roles, establishing a solid and financially lucrative career in playing mostly supporting roles. [8] [9] She often played the role of a firm and forceful elderly woman. She died on June 4, 1998 at Manhattan's Florence Nightingale Nursing Home, at 94 years of age. [10]