If you have a free-use photo of this person, please upload it!
Anna Lee (born Joan Boniface Winnifrith, 2 January 1913 – 14 May 2004) was an English actress and voice artist. She originated the voice of Mrs. Grunch in Oliver and the Artful Dodger.
Biography[]
The daughter of a clergyman, Anna Lee was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith in Ightham, Kent, England. Her father encouraged her to pursue an acting career. After training at London's Royal Albert Hall, she took to the boards and later began appearing in English films, first as an extra, then working her way up to featured roles, and finally earning the unofficial title "The Queen of the Quota Quickies".
Lee and her husband, director Robert Stevenson, relocated to Hollywood in the late 1930s, and Lee began starring in stateside productions as well as becoming a fixture of the John Ford stock company (she appeared in How Green Was My Valley (1941), Fort Apache (1948) and a half dozen others). In 1970, she became the seventh wife of novelist, poet and playwright Robert Nathan (Portrait of Jennie [1948], The Bishop's Wife [1947]). They married three months after they met. After Nathan's death, Lee continued despite adversity, regularly playing the wealthy Lila Quartermaine on the soap opera General Hospital (1963). She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire at the 1982 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama.
On 14 May 2004, Anna Lee died from pneumonia at age 91 at her home in Beverly Hills, California.
External Links[]
- Anna Lee at the Internet Movie Database