Katharine Cornell

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Katharine Cornell

Born	February 16, 1893/1898 Berlin, Germany
Died	June 9, 1974 Tisbury, Massachusetts, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Guthrie McClintic (1921-1961)

Katharine Cornell (February 16, 1893-June 9, 1974) was a stage actress, writer, and theater owner and producer.

She was born on February 16, 1893 (although most sources cite the incorrect year of 1898) in Berlin, Germany to American parents, and raised in Buffalo, New York.

[edit] Acting and writing career

Cornell is noted for her major Broadway roles in serious dramas, often directed by her husband, Guthrie McClintic.

Her most famous role was as English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the 1931 Broadway production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Other appearances on Broadway included: W. Somerset Maugham's The Letter (1927), Sidney Howard's The Alien Corn (1933), Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1934), Maxwell Anderson's The Wingless Victory (1936), S. N. Behrman's No Time for Comedy (1939), a Tony Award-winning Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1947), and a revival of Maugham's The Constant Wife (1951).

She appeared in only one film, the World War II morale booster, Stage Door Canteen, in which she played herself and, along with one of the soldiers, recited a speech from Romeo and Juliet. However, she did appear in television adaptations of The Barretts of Wimpole Street (recreating her original role some twenty years later), and Robert E. Sherwood's There Shall Be No Night. She also narrated the Oscar-winning documentary Helen Keller in Her Story.

Primarily regarded as a tragedienne, she was admired for her refined, romantic presence. One reviewer observed, "Hers is not a robust romanticism, however. It tends toward dark but delicate tints, and the emotion she conveys most aptly is that of an aspiring girlishness which has always been subject to theatrical influences of a special sort." ^[1]

Her appearances in comedy were infrequent, and praised more widely for their warmth than their wit. When she appeared in The Constant Wife, critic Brooks Atkinson concluded that she had changed a "hard and metallic" comedy into a romantic drama. ^[2]

Cornell died on June 9, 1974, in Tisbury, Massachusetts on the island of Martha's Vineyard at the age of 81.

The theater she owned on Martha's Vineyard is now named in her honor. The Katharine Cornell Theater is a popular venue for plays, music, movies and more.

There is another theater space at the State University of New York at Buffalo named in her honor. Many student productions are presented there year round.

Katharine Cornell won a Tony Award for Antony and Cleopatra (1947, award year 1948) along with Jessica Tandy in A Streetcar Named Desire and Judith Anderson in Medea.