Sarah Edwards

Acting

Sarah Edwards

Born 1881-10-11 · Glyn Ceiriog, Denbighshire, Wales

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sarah Edwards (October 11, 1881 – January 7, 1965) was a Welsh-born American film and stage actress. She often played dowagers or spinsters in numerous Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s, mostly in minor roles. Edwards started her acting career as a stage actress, she was described in 1916 by a newspaper article as a leading actress "very popular with West End theatre-goers".[1] She eventually settled in the United States and appeared in six Broadway plays between 1919 and 1931, primarily in comedies like The Merry Malones by George M. Cohan. Among her first movies was the New York-filmed 1929 musical Glorifying the American Girl (1929), where she portrayed the mercenary mother of leading actress Mary Eaton. She came to Hollywood in the mid-1930s where she appeared in about 190 films until her retirement 1951, mostly in uncredited, small character roles. Sarah Edwards died in Hollywood in 1965, aged 83. Edwards seemed older than she was and often portrayed a "kindly grandmother, imperious dowager, hardy pioneer wife, ill-tempered teacher and strict governess". She remains perhaps best-known to modern audiences as the imperious mother of Mary Hatch (Donna Reed) in Frank Capra's film classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946) who tries to keep her daughter away from George Bailey. Edwards also played a customer in Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940) with James Stewart. She also appeared in another Christmas classic, The Bishop's Wife (1947) with Cary Grant, and as the wife of a doctor on the train in Hitchcock's thriller Shadow of a Doubt (1943). Edwards sometimes also portrayed more substantial roles, for instance in the Charlie Chan movie Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944).

Acting credits

It's a Wonderful Life poster
8.3

George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.

It's a Wonderful Life

1946

Shadow of a Doubt poster
7.5

In sleepy Santa Rosa, restless young Charlie’s world brightens when her sophisticated Uncle Charlie arrives for a long visit. But as his behavior grows increasingly strange, she begins to suspect that her beloved uncle may be hiding a terrible secret—and that danger has quietly entered her home.

Shadow of a Doubt

1943

Three Loves Has Nancy poster
4.2

A small-town country homebody goes to New York to find her missing fiancé and gets romantically involved with two sophisticated men.

Three Loves Has Nancy

1938

The Shop Around the Corner poster
8.1

Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realising that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.

The Shop Around the Corner

1940

Bathing Beauty poster
5.9

After breaking up with her fiancé, a gym teacher returns to work at a women's college, but a legal loophole allows him to enroll as one of her students.

Bathing Beauty

1944

The Bishop's Wife poster
7.1

An Episcopal Bishop, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and of why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. With the exception of Henry, everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.

The Bishop's Wife

1947

Allotment Wives poster
6.7

Unscrupulous women marry servicemen for their pay.

Allotment Wives

1945

The Corn Is Green poster
7.2

When a teacher reads an essay written by Morgan Evans, one of the boys, moved by his rough poetry she decides to hold classes in her house and believes that Morgan is smart enough to attend Oxford.

The Corn Is Green

1945

Rings on Her Fingers poster
6.8

Susan Miller works behind the girdle counter in a department store and dreams about the beautiful clothes and glamour she can never hope to have. Enter May Worthington and Warren, a pair of con artists who pose as the mother and uncle of a pretty girl in order to separate millionaires from their money. They convince Susan she has an opportunity to fulfill all her dreams, and the trio heads for Palm Beach. Susan meets John Wheeler who says he is shopping for a sailboat. Believing that he is a millionaire, Warren and May sell him a boat that doesn't belong to them, and make off with his $15,000 life savings. Looking for greener pastures, they work themselves into the family of wealthy Tod Fenwick, who falls for Sue, posing as "Linda Worthington". But John shows up as a guest of Fenwick and he tells "Linda", not knowing she was part of the scam, that he has a detective after the fake captain that sold him the boat...

Rings on Her Fingers

1942

The Awful Truth poster
7.2

Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.

The Awful Truth

1937

Arise, My Love poster
6.3

A dashing pilot and a vivacious reporter have romantic and dramatic adventures in Europe as World War II begins.

Arise, My Love

1940

The Amazing Mr. Williams poster
6.0

Kenny Williams, a lieutenant on the homicide squad, is engaged to Maxine Carroll, the Mayor's secretary. Or isn't he rather married with his job? For each time he has a date with his longtime fiancée, he is prevented from keeping it by his devotion to duty. Maxine, in desperation, decides to take action and bring Kenny to the altar. Who will win, Maxine's curves or the glorious fight against crime?

The Amazing Mr. Williams

1939

The Walking Dead poster
6.3

Down-on-his-luck John Ellman is framed for a judge's murder. After he's convicted and sentenced to death, witnesses come forth and prove his innocence. But it was too late for a stay to be granted and Ellman is executed. A doctor uses an experimental procedure to restore him to life, though the full outcome is other than expected.

The Walking Dead

1936

Undercurrent poster
5.9

After a rapid engagement, a dowdy daughter of a chemist weds an industrialist, knowing little of his family or past. He transforms her into an elegant society wife, but becomes enraged whenever she asks about Michael, his mysterious long-lost brother.

Undercurrent

1946

Carson City poster
6.2

Mine owner William Sharon keeps having his gold shipments held up by a gang of bandits. Sharon hires banker Charles Crocker, who happens to have connections in the Central Pacific Railroad, to build a spur line from Virginia City to Carson City, so that the gold can be shipped by railroad. Silent Jeff Kincaid is the railroad engineer. However there is opposition to the railroad, chiefly from another mine owner, Big Jack Davis.

Carson City

1952

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn poster
6.7

Huckleberry Finn, a rambunctious boy adventurer chafing under the bonds of civilization, escapes his humdrum world and his selfish, plotting father by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1939

The Face Behind the Mask poster
6.5

A kindly, enthusiastic, newly-arrived American immigrant from Hungary is forced to turn to a life of crime after his face is badly disfigured in a hotel fire.

The Face Behind the Mask

1941

The Verdict poster
6.5

After an innocent man is executed in a case he was responsible for, a Scotland Yard superintendent finds himself investigating the murder of his key witness.

The Verdict

1946

The Cowboy and the Lady poster
6.3

Mary Smith decides after a lifetime of being a shut-in to do something wild while her father is out campaigning for the presidency, so she takes off for the family's home in West Palm Beach and inadvertently becomes romantically entangled with earnest cowboy Stretch Willoughby. Neither the dalliance nor the cowboy fit with the upper class image projected by her esteemed father, forcing her to choose.

The Cowboy and the Lady

1938

The General Died at Dawn poster
6.5

China, 1930s, during the ravaging civil war. General Pen entrusts O'Hara, an intrepid American adventurer, with the mission of providing a large sum of money to Mr. Wu with the task of buying weapons in Shanghai to help end General Yang's tyranny that keeps an entire province under his ruthless iron boot.

The General Died at Dawn

1936

No artwork available
4.8

A young woman who works in the movie business buys a sweepstakes ticket that turns out to be a winner. Her stroke of luck changes her life around--and not necessarily for the better.

Sweepstake Annie

1935

American Madness poster
6.9

Socially-conscious banker Thomas Dickson faces a crisis when his protégé is wrongly accused of robbing the bank, gossip of the robbery starts a bank run, and evidence suggests Dickson's wife had an affair... all in the same day.

American Madness

1932

Opened by Mistake poster
7.0

A wise-guy reporter and a tippling sportswriter acquire an unclaimed trunk with a corpse inside.

Opened by Mistake

1940

It's Love I'm After poster
7.1

An infatuated debutante renews a Shakespearean actor's running feud with his leading lady.

It's Love I'm After

1937