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Judith Anderson

A leading Broadway star from the 1920s through the '50s, Judith Anderson was perhaps most famous for her award-winning performance as "Medea" in 1947; as a formidable Lady Macbeth (opposite Laurence Olivier in London in 1937 and Maurice Evans on Broadway in 1941); and as an interpreter of the neurotic heroines of Eugene O'Neill (Nina in "Strange Interlude" in 1928 and Lavinia in "Mourning Becomes Electra" in 1932). Anderson made her film debut in 1933 and played the sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers in Hitchcock's "Rebecca" seven years later. It was the first, and most memorable, in a series of malevolent character roles that made good use of her commanding presence. Cast against type, Anderson made an effective Big Mama in Richard Brooks' film adaptation of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958). Late in her career she gained a new following as campy grande dame Minx Lockridge on the NBC soap opera "Santa Barbara."