Edith Barrett

Edith Barrett (born Edith Barrett Williams; and a granddaughter of 19th-century American tragedian Lawrence Barrett. 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 as a cast member of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre troupe.

While playing Sibil in the Mercury Theatre 1937 production of The Shoemaker's Holiday, she met leading man Vincent Price. The two married in 1938. Barrett moved to Southern California with her husband in late 1939 and gave birth to the couple's and Barrett's only child, author/poet and environmental activist Vincent Barrett (V. B.) Price, in 1940. Their marriage ended in 1948.

Barrett is often mentioned in a troika of Broadway stars of the 1930s alongside Eva Le Gallienne, Katherine Cornell, and sometimes Helen Gahagan. Her most famous roles include Pompelia, her first starring role, in Caponsacchi, which ran for five seasons, and as Sara Moonlight in the 1929 play Mrs. Moonlight by Benn Levy, with which she toured the country, performing more than 500 times. After opening night, the New York Times ran a review of her performance with the headline "A Star Is Born."

In 1934, she played Anne Brontë in the premiere of Dan Totheroh's play Moor Born about the Brontë sisters. Two years later, she was cast as Katherine O'Shea, the romantic lead in Elsie Schauffler's drama Parnell about the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell. Former New York Times drama critic Brooks Atkinson said of this role that Barrett gave “one of her best performances, if not the best performance, of her career.”

In total, Barrett's Broadway credits include Wuthering Heights (1939), The Shoemakers' Holiday (1938), Wise Tomorrow (1937), Parnell (1936), Symphony (1935), Piper Paid (1934), Allure (1934), Moor Born (1934), Strange Orchestra (1933), The Perfect Marriage (1932), Troilus and Cressida (1932), Mrs. Moonlight (1930), Michael and Mary (1929), Becky Sharp (1929), The Phantom Lover (1928), Caponsacchi (1926), The Immortal Thief (1926), King Henry IV, Part I (1926), The Servant in the House (1926), Cyrano de Bergerac (1926), The Merchant of Venice (1925), Hamlet (1925), and Trelawny of the "Wells" (1925).

After starring on Broadway often as the romantic heroine, her Hollywood career started as a character actress in 1941 in a film noir directed by Charles Vidor, Ladies in Retirement. She played one of the two half-witted half-sisters of Ida Lupino's homicidal character. Her best-remembered movie role is possibly Mrs. Holland's mother-in-law, Mrs. Rand, in the cult classic I Walked with a Zombie (1943), a movie sometimes described as Jane Eyre in the Caribbean. She was almost three years younger than her "son" in that film (played by Tom Conway). She appeared briefly onscreen with Price twice in The Song of Bernadette (1943) and again in Keys of the Kingdom (1944). The following year she was seen as Mrs. Fairfax in 20th Century-Fox's adaptation of the real Jane Eyre (1944). She retired from films after a minor role in The Swan (1956), compiling a filmography of more than 20 films.

In the mid-1950s, Barrett revived her career on television in a series of appearances in character roles in Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She essayed the role of Sarah Barnhart in a Telephone Time drama entitled Recipe for Success in 1958. She went on to perform in series such as Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, Lux Video Theatre, and Northwest Passage.

Barrett dedicated much of her later life to supporting fellow New York stage actresses who struggled in the motion picture and television industries. Reflecting on her own declining success in film and television, Barrett often remarked, "the screen just didn’t like me", suggesting she felt she wasn’t photogenic.

Barrett resided in Santa Monica, California from 1946 to 1976. She died at age 70 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she had been living near her son, V. B. Price, and his family. Barrett's New York Times obituary misreported her age as 64.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes1941 Ladies in Retirement Louisa Creed 1942 Lady for a Night Katherine Alderson 1942 Give Out, Sisters Agatha Waverly 1942 Get Hep to Love Miss Roberts 1942 You Can't Escape Forever Madame Lucille 1943 I Walked with a Zombie Mrs. Rand 1943 Always a Bridesmaid Mrs. Cavanaugh 1943 The Ghost Ship Ellen Roberts 1943 The Song of Bernadette Croisine Bouhouhorts 1943 Jane Eyre Mrs. Fairfax 1944 The Story of Dr. Wassell Mother of Little English Boy Uncredited1944 Strangers in the Night Ivy Miller 1944 The Keys of the Kingdom Aunt Polly 1945 Molly and Me Julia 1945 That's the Spirit Abigail 1948 Ruthless Mrs. Burnside 1949 The Lady Gambles Ruth Phillips 1952 Holiday for Sinners Mrs. Corvier 1956 The Swan Elsa - Beatrix's Maid 1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Felicia Green Season 2 Episode 31: "The Night the World Ended"1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Aggie Whiteford Season 2 Episode 33: "A Man Greatly Beloved"1958 In Love and War Mrs. Lenaine Uncredited