Gale Sondergaard

Gale Sondergaard (born Edith Holm Sondergaard; February 15, 1899 – August 14, 1985) was an American actress.

Sondergaard began her acting career in theater and progressed to films in 1936. She was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film debut in Anthony Adverse (1936). She regularly had supporting roles in films during the late 1930s and 1940s, including The Cat and the Canary (1939), The Mark of Zorro (1940) and The Letter (1940). For her role in Anna and the King of Siam (1946), she was nominated for her second Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. After 1949, her screen work came to an abrupt end for 20 years, primarily due to the Hollywood blacklist.

Married to director Herbert Biberman, Sondergaard supported him when he was accused of communism and imprisoned as one of the Hollywood Ten in the early 1950s. She moved with Biberman to New York City and worked in theater. She only returned to occasional acting in film and television beginning in 1969, when she moved back to Los Angeles. She died from cerebrovascular thrombosis in 1985.

Early life Sondergaard was born in Litchfield, Minnesota, to Danish immigrants, Hans Sondergaard (born Hans Tjellesen Schmidt Søndergaard) and Anna Kirstine Søndergaard (née Holm). Her father taught at the University of Minnesota, where she was a drama student.

Stage and film career Until the late 1940s Sondergaard studied acting at the Minneapolis School of Dramatic Arts before joining the John Keller Shakespeare Company. She later toured North America in productions of Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth. After joining the Theatre Guild, she began performing on the New York stage.

She made her first film appearance in Anthony Adverse (1936) as the scheming social climber Faith Paleologus, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her career flourished during the 1930s, notably as the steadfastly loyal wife of disgraced innocent Alfred Dreyfus in The Life of Emile Zola starring Paul Muni (1937).

Sondergaard was cast as the sultry and slinky Tylette, a magically humanized but devious cat, in The Blue Bird (1940), and played the exotic, sinister Eurasian wife in The Letter (1940) starring Bette Davis. part of the Universal cycle, followed by the non-canonical The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946), also for Universal.

She received a second Academy Award nomination for her role as the king's principal wife in Anna and the King of Siam (1946).

House Un-American Activities Committee Sondergaard's career suffered irreparable damage during the United States Congressional HUAC Red Scare of the early 1950s when her husband was accused of being a communist and named as one of the Hollywood Ten. With her career stalled, she supported her husband during the production of Salt of the Earth (1954). They sold their home in Hollywood shortly after they completed Salt of the Earth and moved to New York where Sondergaard was able to work in theater.

Sondergaard married actor Neill O'Malley in 1922; they divorced in 1930. On May 15, 1930, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she married director Herbert Biberman, who was then associated with the Theatre Guild Acting Company. He became a film director and died in 1971. They adopted two children, Joan Kirstine Biberman (married name Campos, 1940) and Daniel Hans Biberman.

Jan 1929 Major Barbara Sarah Undershaft, Lady Britomart's daughter Guild Theatre

Nov 1929 Karl and Anna Marie's sister Guild Theatre

Feb 1930 Red Rust Nina Martin Beck Theatre

May 23, 1931 Alison's House Elsa - Replacement Ritz Theatre

March 1933 American Dream Lydia Kimball, The First Play, 1650 Guild Theatre

Jul 1934 Invitation to a Murder Lorinda Channing Theatre Masque

Nov 1933 Doctor Monica Anna Playhouse Theatre

Dec 28, 1940 Cue for Passion Frances Chapman Royale Theatre

April 26, 1980 Goodbye Fidel Prudencia Ambassador Theatre

Film and television