
Acting
Nydia Westman
Born 1902-02-19 · New York City, New York, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Nydia Eileen Westman (February 19, 1902 – May 23, 1970) was an American actress and singer of stage, screen and television. Westman's parents, Theodore and Lily (Wren) Westman were active in vaudeville in her native New York City. In addition to their working together on stage, her mother was a writer and her father was a composer. She attended the Professional Children's School. Her sisters, Lolita and Neville were actresses, and her brother, Theodore (d. November 20, 1927), was an actor and playwright. Westman's career ranged from episodic appearances on TV series such as That Girl and Dragnet and uncredited bit roles in movies to appearances in groundbreaking films (such as Craig's Wife, which starred Rosalind Russell, and the first film version of Little Women. Westman's screen debut came in Strange Justice (1922). She appeared in 31 films in the 1930s. She appeared as the housekeeper Mrs. Featherstone in the 1962–1963 ABC series, Going My Way, which starred Gene Kelly and Leo G. Carroll as Roman Catholic priests in New York City. Westman's first Broadway play was Pigs (1924); her last was Midgie Purvis (1961). She broke ground on stage, debuting the role of Nell off-Broadway in Samuel Beckett's Endgame, for which she won one of the first Obie awards. Westman was married to Robert Sparks, a producer, from 1930 until 1937; they had a daughter, actress Kate Williamson, born on September 19, 1931. Westman died of cancer at the age of sixty-eight in Burbank, California.
Acting credits
7.1The escape of Bubber Reeves from prison affects the inhabitants of a small Southern town.
The Chase
1966
6.8Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Little Women
1933
6.0Zenas Brewster is a seafaring man with a bad reputation. Notorious for his tempestuous nature, Brewster has earned the nickname of "Captain Hurricane." Brewster is smitten with neighbor Abbie Howland, but she doesn't like his temperament. After a period of retirement, a bad investment puts Brewster back at work on the sea. And when fire overtakes his ship, Hurricane proves heroic, selflessly rescuing his crew from a grisly and deadly fate.
Captain Hurricane
1935
5.4A waitress destined for a better life falls in love with a handsome stranger, only to find that he is already married.
When Tomorrow Comes
1939
6.0Roy Fleming is a small-town kiddie-ride operator who is deathly afraid of heights. After learning that his father has signed him up for the space program, Roy reluctantly heads for Houston, only to find out upon arriving that his job is as a janitor, not an astronaut. Anxious to live up to the expectations of his domineering father, Roy manages to keep up a facade of being an astronaut to his family and friends. When NASA decides to launch a layperson into space to prove the worthiness of a new automated spacecraft, Roy gets the chance to confront his fears.
The Reluctant Astronaut
1967
7.0An aging cowhand tries to help a young rancher settle down by buying him a wife.
Mail Order Bride
1964
6.7Luther Heggs, a typesetter for the town newspaper, pitches an idea for a story about a local haunted house where a famous murder/suicide occurred 20 years earlier. After the editor assigns Luther to spend one night alone in the mansion, Heggs has a number of supernatural encounters and writes a front page story that makes him a hometown hero...until the nephew of the deceased sues him for libel.
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
1966
6.0Thought to be the first full-hour television adaptation of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass', broadcast on the CBS Ford Theatre.
The Ford Theatre Hour: Alice in Wonderland
1950
6.1Wealthy Chloe Brasher has three beautiful daughters; Bonnie, Kate, and Jan. Chloe pays attorney Deke Gentry to fix them up with three suitable husbands.
For Love or Money
1963
6.2Stage actress Valerie Stanton is locked in a bitter feud with her producer and ex Gordon Dunning. When he attempts to blackmail her into remaining under contract with his company, Stanton, in a fit of passion, clubs Dunning with a statuette, killing him. Her gloves have prevented fingerprints but her perfect alibi quickly unravels as Captain Danbury begins investigating.
The Velvet Touch
1948
6.9Relatives gather at a haunted mansion for a will reading where the sole heir is threatened by a clause that could disinherit her if she goes mad, all while a homicidal maniac escapes nearby.
The Cat and the Canary
1939
5.5Mary Barrett is an aspiring opera singer who is taken under the wings of a famous operatic maestro, Guilio Monterverdi. After spending endless working hours together and arguing, their relationship develops into love. But, jealousy and misunderstandings prevent Mary and Guilio from acknowledging their true feelings.
One Night of Love
1934
6.0The switchboard operator in an apartment building falls in love with a businessman who lives in the building, whom she has gotten to know only over the phone. When she discovers that the man's current girlfriend is actually part of a scheme to swindle him out of some mineral rights he owns, she devises a plot to save him and expose the con artists.
Ladies Should Listen
1934
7.2Larry Poole, in prison on a false charge, promises an inmate that when he gets out he will look up and help out a family. The family turns out to be a young girl, Patsy Smith, and her elderly grandfather who need lots of help. This delays Larry from following his dream and going to Venice and becoming a gondolier. Instead, he becomes a street singer and, while singing in the street, meets a pretty welfare worker, Susan Sprague. She takes a dim view of Patsy's welfare under the guardianship of Larry and her grandfather and starts proceedings to have Patsy placed in an orphanage.
Pennies from Heaven
1936
5.2Movie producer chooses a simple girl to be "Miss Humanity" and to critically evalute his movies from the point of view of the ordinary person.
The Goldwyn Follies
1938
5.9Margaret Drew runs her trucking company single-mindedly, if not ruthlessly. The only thorn in her side is writer Michael Holmes who is writing a book on some of her tough ways. With no time for men, the effect an attractive stranger has on her at her sister's wedding is unnerving. When it turns out this is the hated writer, she starts seriously to lose her bearings. Surely it can't become Maggie and Mike?
They All Kissed the Bride
1942
7.5An anthropologist unwittingly takes a man disguised as a "primitive man" back to New York as a specimen.
Her Primitive Man
1944
7.3Mazie, a poor orphan girl, is mistreated by cruel farmer Slag and his wife for whom she works. Mazie, who is growing into a woman, does not like they way Slag has been looking at her lately.
Two Alone
1934
6.4Dr. Janos Rukh discovers a certain type of radium that has almost magical healing properties. But the element has a dangerous side, too, and it has already started affecting Rukh. Consumed by paranoia, he begins to suspect that his wife is having an affair. Wild for revenge, Rukh hatches a deadly plot...using his own poisoned body as a weapon to kill.
The Invisible Ray
1936
6.5Harriet, Walter Craig's wife, is an upper-class woman obsessed with control, material possessions and social status whose behavior makes difficult her relationship with domestic service and family members.
Craig's Wife
1936
5.3An authoress writes a steaming sex-novel and proceeds to live out her heroine's adventures.
The Swinger
1966
7.3Over the Christmas holidays in a small New England college town, a man and a woman share a brief interlude. He is there to visit his wife, who is a mental patient at the university, and she is there visiting her son, who is a student, after discovering her husband's infidelity.
Silent Night, Lonely Night
1969
5.5It's the early nineteenth century Washington. Young adult Margaret O'Neal, Peggy to most that know her, is the daughter of Major William O'Neal, who is the innkeeper of the establishment where most out-of-town politicians and military men stay when they're in Washington. Peggy is pretty and politically aware. She is courted by several of those politicians and military men who all want to marry her, except for the one with who she is truly in love.
The Gorgeous Hussy
1936
7.0Judy Peters is about to be sentenced after she has pled guilty to her third offense of prostitution, when Dr. Nelson interrupts and tells her story to the court. (Mubi.)
Bondage
1933