Evans, Dame Edith
Evans, Dame Edith (1888–1976),English actress. Although she came to possess an almost aristocratic grandeur, she began life as a milliner. She appeared in 1912 as an amateur playing Cressida for William Poel; there was no going back to hats. She quickly built a reputation in London as an original and versatile actress with a special affinity for Restoration comedy. Feeling that she had failed as Helena in a starry production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Drury Lane, she went to play, for very little money, ten of Shakespeare's women at the Old Vic. In New York in 1934 she played the Nurse to Katharine Cornell's Juliet, a part she repeated in London in 1936 when Peggy Ashcroft was Juliet. Though never conventionally glamorous, she could enchant audiences with her vocal skill and timing, and at 48 triumphed as Rosalind at the Old Vic. Her Cleopatra ten years later was less happy. In maturity she played Queen Katherine in All Is...
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