Jessica Tandy

Jessica Tandy Headshot

Actress

Birth Date: June 7, 1909

Death Date: September 11, 1994

Birth Place: London, England, UK

Spouses: Jack Hawkins

Versatile, commanding stage performer, often opposite husband Hume Cronyn, who acted in occasional features beginning in the early 1930s but was busiest in films while in her seventies and eighties.

Tandy began acting onstage in her native England in her teens and by the mid-1930s was enjoying considerable success in the classics, playing Ophelia to John Gielgud's Hamlet in 1934 and playing Viola in Tyrone Guthrie's famous 1937 staging of "Twelfth Night."

Separating from first husband, actor Jack Hawkins, in 1940, Tandy moved to America but initially had a thin time of it. Luckily, she met up-and-coming actor Cronyn, whom she married in 1942 and with whom she made several supporting appearances in American films of the 1940s.

Her Hollywood debut was with Cronyn, in Fred Zinnemann's first-rate thriller "The Seventh Cross" (1944), but within several years she was playing small supporting roles, such as a maid in "Forever Amber" (1947). Luckily, Tennessee Williams saw Tandy onstage in "Portrait of Madonna," a play directed by Cronyn, and decided she was perfect to play one of his most complex creations, Blanche DuBois, in his landmark work, "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1947).

As she would in so much future work, Tandy combined a seemingly fragile, genteel sensitivity with considerable strength, verve and emotionalism. In the 1950s she and Cronyn would prove to be the successors to Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne as the pre-eminent married acting couple of the American theater as in their fine work in the first of several two-character plays, "The Fourposter" (1951).

The couple also did much important work in more experimental fare by Samuel Beckett and other writers, and frequently played in regional theater as well. Tandy and Cronyn occasionally committed their dynamic stage work to the TV screen, and both would return to the silver screen as well; one of Tandy's most impressive characterizations at this mid-career stage was her cold and dominating mother in Alfred Hitchcock's masterful "The Birds" (1963).

Later stage triumphs for Tandy included "The Gin Game" (1978), another comedy-drama duet for her and Cronyn, which won her a Tony to keep company with her one for "Streetcar." (She would win yet again for "Foxfire" 1983, a play which would also net her an Emmy for a TV reprisal in 1988.)

The 1980s saw Tandy reigniting her film career, co-starring in "Cocoon" (1985), "Batteries Not Included" (1987) and "Cocoon: The Return" (1988), and winning her first Oscar as the crusty Southern matron opposite Morgan Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989).

Sympathetic and gentle, yet proud and resolute, Tandy became something of a fixture in Hollywood films aimed at a largely female audience: she was central to the success of both "Fried Green Tomatoes" (1991), adapted from Fannie Flagg's novel, and "Used People" (1992). Indeed, nearly half her feature film credits are from the last 12 years of her life, as were some of her most interesting TV assignments, which included "The Story Lady" (1991) and "To Dance with the White Dog" (1993).

Until the end, her sensitivity and commitment to her craft and to her scripts and fellow players made her more than a dedicated artisan and delightful colleague--they provided a richly textured portrait of indomitable spirit.

Credits

Camilla

Actor
Camilla Cara
Movie
1994

Nobody's FoolStream

Actor
Miss Beryl
Movie
1994
91%

To Dance With the White Dog

Actor
Cora Peek
Movie
1993

Used People

Actor
Freida
Movie
1992

The Story Lady

Actor
Grace McQueen
Movie
1991

Fried Green TomatoesStream

Actor
Ninny Threadgoode
Movie
1991
76%

The Joan Rivers Show

Guest
Talk
1989

Driving Miss DaisyStream

Actor
Daisy Werthan
Movie
1989
85%

The House on Carroll Street

Actor
Miss Venable
Movie
1988

Cocoon: The Return

Actor
Alma Finley
Movie
1988

Foxfire

Actor
Annie Nations
Movie
1987

*batteries not Included

Actor
Faye Riley
Movie
1987

Cocoon

Actor
Alma Finley
Movie
1985
76%

The World According to GarpStream

Actor
Mrs. Fields
Movie
1982
71%

Still of the NightStream

Actor
Grace Rice
Movie
1982
63%

Best FriendsStream

Actor
Eleanor McCullen
Movie
1982
62%

Butley

Actor
Edna Shaft
Movie
1974

The Dick Cavett ShowStream

Guest
Talk
1968

Judd for the Defense

Guest Star
Show
1967

The BirdsStream

Actor
Lydia Brenner
Movie
1963
94%

Hemingway's Adventures of a Young ManStream

Actor
Mrs. Adams
Movie
1962
0%

The Alcoa Hour

Actor
Olivia Crummit
Show
1955

Alfred Hitchcock PresentsStream

Actor
Laura Bowlby
Series
1955

Producers' Showcase

Actor
Show
1954

The Marriage

Actor
Liz Marriott
Show
1954

The United States Steel Hour

Actor
Alice Wiggims
Show
1953

General Electric TheaterStream

Actor
Laura Whitemore
Series
1953

The Desert Fox

Actor
Frau Lucie Marie Rommel
Movie
1951
71%

Teller of Tales

Actor
Show
1950

Masterpiece Playhouse

Actor
Star
Show
1950

What's My Line?Stream

Guest
Game Show
1950

September Affair

Actor
Catherine Lawrence
Movie
1950

Studio One

Actor
Series
1948

A Woman's Vengeance

Actor
Janet Spence
Movie
1947

Dragonwyck

Actor
Peggy O'Malley
Movie
1946

The Green Years

Actor
Kate Leckie
Movie
1946

The Valley of Decision

Actor
Louise Kane
Movie
1945

The Seventh Cross

Actor
Liesel Roeder
Movie
1944
100%