Edith Barrett

Edith Barrett (January 19, 1907 – February 22, 1977) was an American film actress.

Biography

Edith Williams was a granddaughter of 19th-century American actor Lawrence Barrett.^[1] She entered the entertainment industry at age 16 in a staging of Walter Hampden's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. At age 19, in 1926, she appeared with Hampden in Caponsacchi. During the 1930s, she performed with Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre troupe.

While appearing in the Mercury Theatre 1937 production of The Shoemaker's Holiday, she married leading man Vincent Price in 1938. The marriage ended in 1948. She and Price had one son, author/poet and environmental activist Vincent Barrett Price (born 1940). Her biggest Broadway success was as star of the now-obscure production Mrs. Moonlight. ^{[citation needed]}

She made her first film in 1941, playing one of the two half-witted half-sisters of Ida Lupino's homicidal character in Ladies in Retirement. Her most famous movie role was that of the mother-in-law of the unfortunate Mrs. Holland in I Walked with a Zombie (1943), producer Val Lewton's voodoo version of Jane Eyre. She was almost three years younger than her "son" in I Walked with a Zombie (played by Tom Conway).

The following year she was seen as Mrs. Fairfax in 20th Century-Fox's adaptation of the real Jane Eyre (1944).) She also had a part in another Lewton film, The Ghost Ship (1943). She retired from films after essaying a minor role in The Swan (1956).

Notes

Selected filmography

• Lady for a Night (1942)
• Give Out, Sisters (1942)
• I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
• The Ghost Ship (1943)
• The Song of Bernadette (1943)
• Jane Eyre (1943)
• The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
• The Swan (1956)

External links

• Edith Barrett at the Internet Movie Database
• Edith Barrett at the Internet Broadway Database
• Edith Barrett at AllRovi
• Edith Barrett at Find a Grave

External links

• Edith Barrett at the Internet Movie Database
• Edith Barrett at the Internet Broadway Database
• Edith Barrett at AllRovi