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Jessie Alice Tandy (7 June 1909 – 11 September 1994), known professionally as Jessica Tandy, was an English and American actress. She appeared in over 100 stage productions and had more than 60 roles in film and TV, receiving an Academy Award, four Tony Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Tandy won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing Blanche DuBois in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948, also winning for The Gin Game and Foxfire. Her films included The Birds, Cocoon, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Nobody's Fool. At 80, she became the oldest actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for Driving Miss Daisy.
Her father died when she was 12, and her mother subsequently taught evening courses to earn an income. Her brother Edward was later a prisoner of war of the Japanese in Asia.
She entered films in Britain, but after her marriage to Jack Hawkins failed, she moved to the United States hoping to find better roles. During her time as a leading actress on the stage in London, she often had to fight over roles with her two rivals, Peggy Ashcroft and Celia Johnson. In the following years, she played supporting roles in several Hollywood films.
Like many stage actors, Tandy also worked in radio. Among other programs, she was a regular on Mandrake the Magician (as Princess Narda), and then with her second husband Hume Cronyn in The Marriage which ran on radio from 1953 to 1954, and then segued onto television.
She made her American film debut in The Seventh Cross (1944; appearing alongside Cronyn). She had supporting appearances in The Valley of Decision (1945), The Green Years (1946, as Cronyn's daughter), Dragonwyck (1946) starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price and Forever Amber (1947). She appeared as the insomniac murderess in A Woman's Vengeance (1948), a film noir adapted by Aldous Huxley from his short story "Mortal Coils".
Over the next three decades, her film career continued sporadically while she found better roles on the stage. Her roles during this time included (1951) opposite James Mason, The Light in the Forest (1958), and a role as a domineering mother in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds (1963).
On Broadway, she won a Tony Award for her performance as Blanche Dubois in the original Broadway theatre production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948. After this (she lost the film role to actress Vivien Leigh), she concentrated on the stage. In 1976, she and Cronyn joined the acting company of the Stratford Festival, and returned in 1980 to debut Cronyn's play Foxfire. In 1977, she earned her second Tony Award, for her performance (with Cronyn) in The Gin Game. The following year the production transferred to London's Lyric Theatre, where Tandy was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a New Play. Her third Tony came in 1982 for her performance, again with Cronyn, in Foxfire.
The beginning of the 1980s saw a resurgence in her film career, with character roles in The World According to Garp (with Cronyn), Best Friends, Still of the Night (all 1982) and The Bostonians (1984). She and Cronyn were now working together more regularly on stage and television, including the films Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), Cocoon (1985), *batteries not included (1987), (1988), and the Emmy Award winning television film Foxfire (1987, recreating her Tony winning Broadway role).
However, it was her colourful performance in Driving Miss Daisy (1989), as an aging, stubborn Southern Jewish matron, that earned her an Oscar.
She received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work in the grassroots hit Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) and co-starred in The Story Lady (1991 TV film, with her daughter Tandy Cronyn), Used People (1992, as Shirley MacLaine's mother), television film To Dance with the White Dog (1993, with Cronyn), and Camilla (1994, with Cronyn). Nobody's Fool (1994) proved to be her last performance, at the age of 84.
Tandy and Hawkins divorced in 1940. She married Canadian actor Hume Cronyn in 1942. Prior to moving to Connecticut, she and Cronyn lived for many years in nearby Pound Ridge, New York, and they remained together until her death in 1994. They had two children, daughter Tandy Cronyn, an actress who co-starred with her mother in the TV film The Story Lady, and son Christopher Cronyn. Tandy became a naturalised citizen of the US in 1952.
In 1990, Tandy was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and she also suffered from Angina pectoris and glaucoma. Despite her illnesses and advancing age she continued working. On September 11, 1994, she died at home in Easton, Connecticut, at the age of 85.
Work
US stage credits
1930 Toni Rakonitz 1930 Cynthia Perry 1938 Time and the Conways Kay 1939 Nora Fintry 1940 Geneva Deaconess 1940 Jupiter Laughs Dr. Mary Murray 1941 Anne of England Abigail Hill 1942 Yesterday's Magic Daughter Cattrin 1947 Blanche DuBois Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play 1950 Hilda Crane Hilda Crane 1951 Madam, Will You Walk Mary Doyle 1951 Agnes 1955 The Man in the Dog Suit Martha Walling 1955 Mary 1959 Triple Play In Bedtime Story: Angela Nightingale
In Portrait of a Madonna: Miss Lucretia Collins
In A Pound on Demand: The Public 1959 Five Finger Exercise Louise Harrington 1964 Fraulein Doktor Mathilde von Zahnd 1966 Agnes 1970 Camino Real Marguerite Gautier 1970 Home Marjorie 1971 All Over The Wife 1972 Not I Mouth Obie Award for Best Actress 1974 Noël Coward in Two Keys In A Song at Twilight: Hilde Latymer
In Come Into the Garden, Maud: Anna Mary Conklin 1977 Fonsia Dorsey Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play1981 Rose Mother Nominated—Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play
Nominated—Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play1982 Foxfire Annie Nations Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play1983 Amanda Wingfield 1986 Lady Elizabeth Milne Nominated—Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play
Film
1932 The Indiscretions of Eve Maid 1938 Murder in the Family Ann Osborne 1944 Liesel Roeder 1944 Blonde Fever Diner at Inn Uncredited 1945 Louise Kane 1946 Kate Leckie 1946 Dragonwyck Peggy O'Malley 1947 Forever Amber Nan Britton 1948 Janet Spence 1950 September Affair Catherine Lawrence 1951 Frau Lucie Maria Rommel 1958 Myra Butler 1962 Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man Helen Adams Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture 1963 Lydia Brenner 1976 Butley Edna Shaft 1981 Honky Tonk Freeway Carol 1982 Mrs. Fields 1982 Still of the Night Grace Rice 1982 Best Friends Eleanor McCullen 1984 Miss Birdseye 1984 Terror in the Aisles Herself Archival footage 1985 Cocoon Alma Finley Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actress 1987 Batteries Not Included Faye Riley Saturn Award for Best Actress 1988 Miss Venable 1988 Alma Finley Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actress 1989 Driving Miss Daisy Daisy Werthan Academy Award for Best Actress
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Silver Bear
Nominated—American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture
Nominated—National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Nominated—New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress1991 Fried Green Tomatoes Ninny Threadgoode Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture1992 Used People Freida 1994 A Century of Cinema Herself Documentary 1994 Camilla Camilla Cara Released posthumously 1994 Nobody's Fool Beryl Peoples Released posthumously (final film role)
Television
†Re-issued on DVD as The Christmas Story Lady
1948 Actors Studio Miss Lucretia Collins Episode: "Portrait of a Madonna" 1950 Masterpiece Playhouse Hedda Episode: "Hedda Gabler" 1951 Lights Out Episode: "Bird of Time" 1951 Somerset Maugham TV Theatre Episode: "The Man from Glasgow" 1951 Prudential Family Playhouse Jane Crosby Episode: "Icebound" 1951 Betty Crocker Star Matinee Episode: "The Weak Spot" 1951–1957 Studio One Various 2 episodes 1953–1956 Omnibus Various 5 episodes 1954 The Marriage Liz Marriott 8 episodes 1955 Agnes Episode: "The Fourposter"
Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie1955 The Philco Television Playhouse Liz Marriott Episode: "Christmas 'til Closing" 1955–1956 Goodyear Television Playhouse Various 2 episodes 1956 The United States Steel Hour Alice Wiggims Episode: "The Great Adventure" 1956 Star Stage Episode: "The School Mistress" 1956 The Alcoa Hour Olivia Crummit Episode: "The Confidence Man" 1956 General Electric Theater Laura Whitemore Episode: "The Pot of Gold" 1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Edwina Freel Season 2 Episode 6: "Toby" 1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Julia Lester Season 3 Episode 1: "The Glass Eye" 1957 Studio 57 Miss Bedford Episode: "Little Miss Bedford" 1957 Suspicion Episode: "Murder Me Gently" 1957–1958 Schlitz Playhouse of Stars Various 2 episodes 1958 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Laura Bowlby Season 3 Episode 37: "The Canary Sedan" 1958 Telephone Time Bertha Kinsky Episode: "War Against War" 1959 The Ed Sullivan Show The Public Episode #12.34 1959 DuPont Show of the Month Mrs. Baines Episode: "The Fallen Idol" 1959 The Moon and Sixpence Blanche Stroeve Television movie 1964 Breaking Point Roberta Duncan Episode: "Glass Flowers Never Drop Petals" 1968 Judd, for the Defense Helen Wister Episode: "Punishments, Cruel and Unusual" 1972 O'Hara, U.S. Treasury Genevieve Episode: "Operation: Dorias" 1972 The F.B.I. Ardyth Nolan Episode: "The Set-Up" 1972 Norman Corwin Presents Episode: "A Foreign Field" 1975 Bicentennial Minutes Herself Episode #1.424 1981 The Gin Game Fonsia Dorsey Television movie 1987 Foxfire Annie Nations Television movie
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie1991 † Grace McQueen Television movie
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film1993 To Dance with the White Dog Cora Peek Television movie
Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
Other awards
Tandy was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world in 1990.
External links
Categories: 1909 Births, 1994 Deaths, 20th-century American Actresses, 20th-century British Actresses, Actresses From London, Best Actress Academy Award Winners, Best Actress Bafta Award Winners, Best Musical Or Comedy Actress Golden Globe Winners, David Di Donatello Winners, Deaths From Cancer In Connecticut, Deaths From Ovarian Cancer In The United States, Drama Desk Award Winners, English Emigrants To The United States, Actors Educated At Dame Alice Owen's School, Special Tony Award Recipients, Tony Award Winners, United States National Medal Of Arts Recipients, People From Easton, Connecticut, Kennedy Center Honorees, English Expatriate Actresses In The United States, Actors From The London Borough Of Hackney, People From Stoke Newington, Metro-goldwyn-mayer Contract Players
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