Anna Lee
Anna Lee, MBE was a British-born American actress, labelled by studios "The British Bombshell".
Early life
Anna Lee was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith in Ightham, Kent, the daughter of Bertram Thomas Winnifrith, a headmaster and Anglican rector, and his second wife, Edith Maude Digby-Roper. Her middle name "Boniface" derives from the saint from whom the Winnifrith family was descended. Her father, who supported his daughter in her desire to become an actress, came from a long line of clergy. As far back as A.D. 680 there was a Benedictine monk named Winifried or Winfrith from Devonshire who was consecrated Archbishop of Mainz. Lee's grandfather, Reverend Alfred Winnifrith, was Rector of Mariansleigh. During WWI, he provided for Belgian refugees and was awarded the Medaille du Roi Albert. Lee's brother, Sir John Winnifrith, was a senior British civil servant who became permanent secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture. She was the goddaughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and lifelong friend of his daughter, Dame Jean Conan Doyle.Career
Britain
Lee trained at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art at the Royal Albert Hall, and made her debut with a bit part in His Lordship, when she was 19. She played a number of minor, often uncredited, roles in films during the early 1930s. Lee began to get more prominent roles in films to satisfy the Cinematograph Films Act of 1927, which was an act of the United Kingdom Parliament designed to stimulate the declining British film industry. She was known for her roles in films set amongst the wealthy, particularly in Chelsea Life, in which she starred with Louis Hayward.In 1934, Lee signed a contract with Gainsborough Pictures, the biggest British production company of the era. She played leading lady roles in a variety of different genres at Gainsborough, including the comedy-thriller The Camels Are Coming, the drama The Passing of the Third Floor Back, the horror film The Man Who Changed His Mind and the war film OHMS. She appeared in the 1935 Jessie Matthews musical First a Girl as the aristocratic playgirl and other woman, Princess Miranoff. In 1937, she starred in one of the studio's large-budget productions, King Solomon's Mines.
Lee met her first husband, the director Robert Stevenson in 1933, while shooting The Camels are Coming on location in Egypt. In 1937, she starred in his picture, Non-Stop New York, for Gaumont British. During 1938, she took time off from acting to give birth to her first child. In 1939, Lee and her husband switched to Ealing Studios run by Michael Balcon, the former head of Gainsborough. She played a 19th-century Irish music hall performer who falls in love with an aristocrat in the comedy Young Man's Fancy and a journalist who helps heroes thwart a foreign enemy's plot against Britain in The Four Just Men.
Her final film in Britain was Return to Yesterday, a film about a young repertory theatre actress who falls in love with a Hollywood star she meets while touring in a small seaside town. With World War II imminent, Lee and Stevenson went to the United States. She remained supportive of the British war effort and in 1943 appeared alongside other British actors in Forever and a Day, a film made to raise money for British charities.
United States
When she and her husband moved to Hollywood she became associated with John Ford, appearing in several of his films, notably How Green Was My Valley, Two Rode Together and Fort Apache. She co-starred with John Wayne and John Carroll in Flying Tigers.She worked for producer Val Lewton in the horror/thriller Bedlam and had a lead role opposite Brian Donlevy and Walter Brennan in Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die!, a wartime thriller about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Lee made frequent appearances on television anthology series in the 1940s and 1950s, including Robert Montgomery Presents, The Ford Theatre Hour, Kraft Television Theatre, Armstrong Circle Theatre and Wagon Train. She made a guest appearance on Perry Mason as Crystal Durham in "The Case of the Unsuitable Uncle".
In 1958, she returned to Britain to appear in John Ford's Gideon's Day, in which she played the detective's wife. She had a small but memorable role as Sister Margaretta in The Sound of Music, one of the two nuns who thwarted the Nazis by removing car engine parts, allowing the Von Trapps to escape. Lee appeared in the 1962 classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? in a small role as Mrs. Bates, a neighbour of the sisters played by Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. In 1994, Lee took the leading role in the feature film What Can I Do?, directed by Wheeler Winston Dixon.
In later years, she became known to a new generation as matriarch Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital and Port Charles until being removed from contract and dropped to recurring status in 2003 by Jill Farren-Phelps, which was widely protested in the soap world and among General Hospital actors. According to fellow General Hospital actress Leslie Charleson, Lee had been promised a job for life by former General Hospital executive producer Wendy Riche. Charleson said in 2007, "The woman was in her 90s. And then when the new powers-that-be took over they fired her, and it broke her heart. It was not necessary."
Personal life
Lee married her first husband, the director Robert Stevenson, in 1933 and moved to Hollywood in 1939. They had two daughters, Venetia and Caroline. Venetia Stevenson, an actress as well, was married to Don Everly of the Everly Brothers and has three children, Edan, Erin, and Stacy. Lee and Stevenson divorced in March 1944, with Venetia and Caroline electing to live with their father. She met her second husband, George Stafford, as the pilot of the plane on her USO tour during the Second World War. They married on 8 June 1944, and had three sons, John, Stephen and Tim Stafford.Tim Stafford is an actor under the stage name of Jeffrey Byron. Lee and Stafford divorced in 1964. Her final marriage, to novelist Robert Nathan, on 5 April 1970, ended at his death in 1985. Lee became a naturalized US citizen under the name Joanna Boniface Stafford on 6 April 1945; certificate issued 8 June 1945.
In the 1930s, Lee occupied a house at 49 Bankside in London; she was later interviewed by writer Gillian Tindall for a book written about the address, The House by the Thames, released in 2006. Since first built in 1710, the house had served as a home for coal merchants, an office, a boarding house, a hangout for derelicts and finally once again a private residence in the 1900s. The house is listed in tour guides as a famous residence and has been variously claimed as possibly being home to Christopher Wren during the construction of St. Paul's Cathedral, and previously claimed residents included Catherine of Aragon and William Shakespeare.
In 1981, a car accident left her paralysed from the waist down.
Lee was a staunch Conservative and stated that her views coincided with those of Sir Winston Churchill.
Awards and honours
In 1982 she was awarded an MBE, after fundraising for the White Cliffs at Dover and Ightham Mote. In 1995, her star was installed on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. On 21 May 2004, she was posthumously awarded a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award; she was scheduled for months to receive the award, but died from pneumonia at age 91 before she could receive it. Her son, Jeffrey Byron, accepted the award on her behalf. On 16 July 2004, General Hospital aired a tribute to Lee by holding a memorial service for Lila Quartermaine.Filmography
;Film| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1932 | Ebb Tide | Uncredited | |
| 1932 | Say It with Music | ||
| 1932 | His Lordship | Scrub Girl Chorine | Uncredited |
| 1933 | The King's Cup | Minor Role | Uncredited |
| 1933 | Yes, Mr. Brown | Uncredited | |
| 1933 | Mayfair Girl | Bit Role | Uncredited |
| 1933 | The Bermondsey Kid | ||
| 1933 | Chelsea Life | Muriel Maxton | |
| 1933 | Mannequin | Babette | |
| 1934 | Faces | Madeleine Pelham | |
| 1934 | Rolling in Money | Lady Eggleby | |
| 1934 | Lucky Loser | Ursula Hamilton | |
| 1934 | The Camels are Coming | Anita Rodgers | |
| 1935 | Heat Wave | Jane Allison | |
| 1935 | The Passing of the Third Floor Back | Vivian | |
| 1935 | First a Girl | Princess Miranoff | |
| 1936 | The Man Who Changed His Mind | Dr Wyatt | |
| 1937 | OHMS | Sally Briggs | |
| 1937 | King Solomon's Mines | Kathleen O'Brien | |
| 1937 | Non-Stop New York | Jennie Carr | |
| 1939 | The Four Just Men | Ann Lodge | |
| 1939 | Young Man's Fancy | Miss Ada | |
| 1940 | Return to Yesterday | Carol Sands | |
| 1940 | Seven Sinners | Dorothy | |
| 1941 | My Life with Caroline | Caroline | |
| 1941 | How Green Was My Valley | Bronwyn | |
| 1942 | Flying Tigers | Brooke Elliott | |
| 1942 | Commandos Strike at Dawn | Judith Bowen | |
| 1943 | Forever and a Day | Cornelia Trimble-Pomfret | |
| 1943 | Flesh and Fantasy | Rowena | |
| 1943 | Hangmen Also Die! | Masha Novotny | |
| 1944 | Summer Storm | Nadena Kalenin | |
| 1946 | Bedlam | Nell Bowen | |
| 1946 | G.I. War Brides | Linda Powell | |
| 1947 | The Ghost and Mrs. Muir | Mrs Miles Fairley | |
| 1947 | High Conquest | Marie Correl | |
| 1948 | Fort Apache | Mrs Emily Collingwood | |
| 1948 | Best Man Wins | Nancy Smiley | |
| 1949 | Prison Warden | Elisa Pennington Burnell | |
| 1958 | Gideon's Day | Mrs Kate Gideon | |
| 1958 | The Last Hurrah | Gert Minihan | |
| 1959 | The Horse Soldiers | Mrs Buford | |
| 1959 | This Earth Is Mine | Charlotte Rambeau | |
| 1959 | The Crimson Kimono | Mac | |
| 1959 | Jet Over the Atlantic | Ursula Leverett | |
| 1960 | The Big Night | Mrs Turner | |
| 1961 | Two Rode Together | Mrs Malaprop | |
| 1962 | The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance | Mrs. Prescott | Uncredited |
| 1962 | Jack the Giant Killer | Lady Constance | |
| 1962 | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? | Mrs. Bates | |
| 1962 | Mutiny on the Bounty | Uncredited | |
| 1964 | For Those Who Think Young | Laura Pruitt | |
| 1964 | The Unsinkable Molly Brown | Titanic Passenger in Lifeboat | Uncredited |
| 1965 | The Sound of Music | Sister Margaretta | |
| 1966 | 7 Women | Mrs Russell | |
| 1966 | Picture Mommy Dead | Elsie Kornwald | |
| 1967 | In Like Flint | Elisabeth | |
| 1968 | Star! | Hostess | Uncredited |
| 1978 | Legend of the Northwest | ||
| 1979 | The Night Rider | Lady Earl | |
| 1987 | Right Hand Man | Worn Woman | |
| 1987 | Beyond the Next Mountain | Governor's Wife | |
| 1989 | Listen to Me | Garson's Grandmother | |
| 1989 | Beverly Hills Brats | Gertie | |
| 1994 | What Can I Do | Elderly Woman |
;Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1950 | Robert Montgomery Presents | Frances Lawrence | 1 episode |
| 1951 | Studio One | Anita Derr | 1 episode |
| 1952 | Robert Montgomery Presents | Ann Hammond | 2 episodes |
| 1958 | Peter Gunn | Sister Thomas Aquina | 1 episode |
| 1960 | The Barbara Stanwyck Show | 1 episode | |
| 1962 | Perry Mason | Crystal Durham | 1 episode |
| 1962 | McHale's Navy | Pamela Parfrey | 1 episode 11 |
| 1963 | The Alfred Hitchcock Hour | Roberta Saunders | 1 episode |
| 1964 | The Movie Maker | TV movie | |
| 1965 | Combat! | Sister Lescaut | |
| 1966 | My Three Sons | Louise Allen | 1 episode |
| 1967 | Gunsmoke | Amy Bassett | 1 episode |
| 1968 | Mannix "Edge Of The Knife" | Mrs Harriman | Season 2 Episode 07 |
| 1970 | ' | Maria Malik | |
| 1973 | My Darling Daughters' Anniversary | Judge Barbara Hanline | TV Movie |
| 1977 | ' | Laura Delano | TV Movie |
| 1978 | The Beasts Are on the Streets | Mrs Jackson | TV movie |
| 1979–2003 | General Hospital | Lila Quartermaine | 77 episodes, |
| 1980 | Scruples | Aunt Wilhelmina | 3 episodes |
| 1997 | Port Charles | Lila Quartermaine |