Jean Anderson

Gaunt Sussex-born actress of Scottish descent whose dignified manner and plain, but expressive features qualified her for a wide range of character parts, from austere nurses and long-suffering mothers to overbearing dowagers and nosy gossips; from meddlesome chaperones to authoritarian aunts and intransigent spinsters. She rarely gave an indifferent performance and was often quite brilliant, particularly on the small screen. Jean Anderson was the daughter of a well-to-do cloth merchant specialising in muslin. As she grew up, she aspired to become a violinist, later a tennis player. Though she did make a junior Wimbledon appearance in the 1920's, her road eventually led to training at RADA, where her acting skills were first discovered. In 1931, she joined the Richmond Repertory Company and soon found herself in a leading role opposite Robert Morley. By decade's end, she had a three year spell at Dublin's Gate Theatre as the lead in Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!". During the succeeding decade she regularly appeared at the West End and acted with a touring repertory company alongside Jack Hawkins in "Hamlet" and "Othello". Following her screen debut in 1947, Anderson was able to balance both media successfully through the next half a century. Her formidable gallery of celluloid characters came to include the dependable nurses of White Corridors (1951) and Life in Her Hands (1951); the loyal maid Wilson of The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957); the matriarch in two productions of The Railway Children (1951); the cold, manipulative Mary Hammond of The Brothers (1972); forthright Lady Jocelyn Holbrook, ever troublesome to her Japanese captors in Tenko (1981), plus diverse TV guest spots and cameos, from ABC's Armchair Mystery Theatre (1960) (a notably sinister role) to Keeping Up Appearances (1990) (as the posh aristocrat Mrs. Fortescue). In her private life Anderson enjoyed collecting porcelain, going to the races and gardening at her home in Knightsbridge .