Cat. #005793: MAY WHITTY

Scarce and charming vintage 3.5 x 5.25-inch black and white English postcard portrait, boldly signed in blue fountain pen in the 1930s. In good condition for its age. Delightfully eccentric English stage and screen character actress May Whitty excelled at playing kind, but staunchly strong-minded matrons. She was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Mrs. Bramson in the terrifying psychodrama Night Must Fall (1938) and again for her role as Mrs. Beldon in Mrs. Miniver (1942). She was also memorable as the crafty clairvoyant Rosalie La Grange in the 1937 remake of The Thirteenth Chair; Miss Froy, the titular missing person in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938); Ms. McLaidlaw in Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941); and Miss Thwaites in Gaslight (1942). In 1918, she became the first actress to be invested as a Dame Commander of the British Empire.