Judith Anderson: Australian Star, First Lady of the American Stage
by Desley Deacon
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
This had languished on my 'To Read' list for seven years, largely because of its intimidating girth.
At 520 pages, it looked less like a biography and more like
a personal challenge. Alas, it proved well worth the wait and all the more
rewarding for being savoured at a luxuriously unhurried pace.
For many classic cinema lovers of a certain ilk, Judith Anderson remains forever the unforgettable Mrs. Danvers of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), that chilling housekeeper whose devotion to the tragically drowned first Rebecca de Winter becomes a form of psychological warfare against Joan Fontaine's vulnerable young successor bride.
Others know her as Gene Tierney's formidable aunt Ann Treadwell in Otto Preminger's 1944 breakthrough film noir Laura; or the quietly indomitable matriarch Ida 'Big Mama' Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958).
She is immortalised as ill-fated Egyptian slave-nurse Memnet, pushed off a balcony and killed by Nefretiri (Anne Baxter) in Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 biblical epic The Ten Commandments.
Yet as author Desley Deacon demonstrates, those fabled screen appearances represent just a fraction of an illustrious career
Outside of
Australia, few of those movie fans of the day realised she was Australian.
Fewer still, except theatregoers or aficionados, knew she was also the 'First
lady of the American Stage.'
When I
mentioned recently to a not unseasoned theatre worker that I was reading this,
they asked with sincerity: 'Who's Judith Anderson?'
Before I had quite recovered, another acquaintance wondered
if she had been the lead singer of The Seekers. At which point, I felt compelled
to retreat to a darkened room with a restorative cup of tea and ... just me and this book.
Veteran
stars like Anderson are now a sort of insider secret: if you know, you're of a
special vintage. If you don't, then you ought to.
This is precisely why books like Deacon's matter.
This sumptuous profile restores Anderson to her rightful place among the 20th century's performance behemoths. Structured in theatrical 'acts' and 'scenes' and richly illustrated, it tracks the journey of Frances Margaret Anderson, born 1897 in Adelaide – part of the young colony of South Australia with its mere 300,000 inhabitants – who becomes one of the most respected actresses to ever tread Broadway's boards.
The early chapters are among the most absorbing.
We meet 'Fanny' Anderson, youngest of four children, growing up in South Australia after the separation of her parents. Her father, a charismatic gambler and adventurer known as 'The Silver King', deserts the family when she is six, leaving her with only memories of him.
Her resourceful mother Jessie sells almost everything except the family piano and supports the family by running a grocery business.
Fanny emerges as a wilful, high-achieving
tomboy who competes with boys and earns the moniker Outlaw Fan. She wags
school, loving only its Friday afternoon Penny Concerts. Like many children of
her era, she performs in home concerts, but in her case uses her talents to
barter with.
Even as a child she seems destined for performance. She wins
prizes for singing and recitation, and displays an early determination to carve
her own path through life.
Although
she has a music teacher, her heart is set on elocution and the art of verse
speaking – at the time an essential accomplishment for middle-class girls
around the English-speaking world. Her voice coach had studied under the
teacher of Lionel Logue, who helped manage King George VI's stammer.
Fanny is
soon quoting Shakespeare and winning medals for recitation and singing.
Her
theatrical ambitions awaken on seeing Nelly Melba's Adelaide concert in in
1908. Her lifelong love of theatre is sealed that year at J. C. Williamson's Peter
Pan, whose star Minnie Tittell Brune flies out on a wire, hovers over the
gallery and sprinkles 11-year-old Fanny with stardust.
One of this book's notable strengths is that Deacon
never merely catalogues events. She recreates worlds.
The Adelaide and Sydney of Anderson's youth feel tangible and alive. We accompany the ambitious teenager as she relocates to Sydney with her devoted mother, encounters the city's cultural elite, studies acting, and gradually morphs from gifted amateur to arch professional.
These early chapters filled
with sunshine and promise, let us feel the era and settings as if there
ourselves, transporting the reader so completely that one almost forgets
they are reading a work of scholarship.
That achievement reflects Deacon's gift as a writer.
Although an accomplished historian, she is first and foremost a storyteller.
Drawing on unpublished memoirs, diaries, correspondence and extensive archival
research, she constructs a portrait of rare depth without ever allowing the
narrative to become dry or academic.
The Anderson these pages uncovers is ambitious,
witty, occasionally difficult, deeply committed to her craft and fascinating.
Arriving in America in 1918, Fanny becomes Judith, steadily establishing a reputation for intelligence, intensity
and commanding stage presence. She will eventually stand among theatre royalty,
working alongside the likes of Katharine Cornell, Ruth Gordon, John Gielgud,
Laurence Olivier and Lillian Gish.
Anderson's rollcall of achievements is astonishing.
She plays Gertrude opposite Gielgud's Hamlet, Lady
Macbeth with Olivier, stars in Chekhov's Three Sisters, tours globally,
conquers radio and television and even undertakes a hallowed tour as Hamlet herself.
Above all comes Medea, the role most closely associated with her and the
performance that secures her place among the finest tragediennes of her time.
Reading these accounts, we start to see why film was always
secondary for Anderson. While Hollywood made her famous, theatre made her
a legend.
The author does not neglect the private woman behind the
public figure. We learn of Anderson's marriages, friendships, disappointments
and occasional insecurities. The sacrifices demanded by a life devoted almost
entirely to art become increasingly apparent. What we discover is not a remote
theatrical monument but a complex, very human individual.
What remains most striking is the scale of Anderson's
accomplishment.
Here was a girl from Adelaide who became Broadway's reigning
queen for an entire generation, earned Emmy and Tony awards, received an
Academy Award nomination, was appointed a Dame Commander of the British Empire
and later became a Companion of the Order of Australia. Yet today her name is
often met with puzzled looks outside specialist circles.
This written work goes a long way towards correcting that
injustice.
By the final curtain, one is left not only admiring Judith Anderson but wondering how such a towering figure could have slipped from public memory. More than a life story, this is a rich history of 20th-century theatre, a portrait of artistic dedication and a reminder
that 19th-century-born Australians sometimes ventured far from home and quietly conquered
the world.
Through Deacon's elegant storytelling, Judith Anderson steps
out from the shadows of old programmes, fading reviews and grainy film
appearances to reclaim centre stage. Long after closing the book, I found
myself thinking about that determined Adelaide girl who crossed an ocean,
remade herself and became one of the most venerated actresses of her generation.
A biography can do no greater service than that.
For lovers of theatre history, Golden Age of Hollywood and great actors' stories, this is an absorbing, elegant and deeply rewarding read.
