Cora Witherspoon (January , â€" November , ) was an American stage
and film character actress whose career spanned nearly half a century.
She began in theatre where she remained rooted even after entering
motion pictures in the early s. As Witherspoon’s career progressed,
she carved a niche playing haughty society women or harridan
housewives such as Princess Lina in Ferenc Molnár's play Olympia, or
Agatha Sousè, W.C. Fields’ domineering spouse in the film The Bank
Dick. John Springer and Jack Hamilton, authors of They Had Faces Then:
Super Stars, Stars, and Starlets of the s (), wrote that "Witherspoon
was blessed with a face that might have been drawn by one of those
cartoonists who specialize in dealing with the war between men and
women."She was born in New Orleans, to Cora S. Bell and Henry
Edgeworth Witherspoon. Her father was an assistant surgeon with the
Confederate Army during the American Civil War while her mother was an
aunt of the civil rights advocate Judge John Minor Wisdom. Witherspoon
was orphaned by age and raised at least in part by her older sister,
Maud, who, while still in her teens founded the Maud Witherspoon Rag
Doll Manufacturing Company. Witherspoon's ancestors had reportedly
once owned Ellington Plantation in St. Charles Parish,
Louisiana.Witherspoon made her professional stage debut in with a New
Orleans stock company. She first appeared in New York at the Belasco
Theatre in the hit comedy The Concert, which was Leo Ditrichstein's
adaptation of the stage play, in which the -year-old actress portrayed
the -year-old Edith Gordon. Witherspoon appeared with Ditrichstein in
September for a four-month run at the Belasco and briefly the Theatre
Republic playing Fanny Lamont in The Temperamental Journey, from the
comedy Pour Vivre Heureux by Andre Rivoire and Yves Mirandeis. From
September into the following May at the Gaiety Theatre, she played
Sally McBride in Jean Webster’s comedy Daddy Long Legs.
and film character actress whose career spanned nearly half a century.
She began in theatre where she remained rooted even after entering
motion pictures in the early s. As Witherspoon’s career progressed,
she carved a niche playing haughty society women or harridan
housewives such as Princess Lina in Ferenc Molnár's play Olympia, or
Agatha Sousè, W.C. Fields’ domineering spouse in the film The Bank
Dick. John Springer and Jack Hamilton, authors of They Had Faces Then:
Super Stars, Stars, and Starlets of the s (), wrote that "Witherspoon
was blessed with a face that might have been drawn by one of those
cartoonists who specialize in dealing with the war between men and
women."She was born in New Orleans, to Cora S. Bell and Henry
Edgeworth Witherspoon. Her father was an assistant surgeon with the
Confederate Army during the American Civil War while her mother was an
aunt of the civil rights advocate Judge John Minor Wisdom. Witherspoon
was orphaned by age and raised at least in part by her older sister,
Maud, who, while still in her teens founded the Maud Witherspoon Rag
Doll Manufacturing Company. Witherspoon's ancestors had reportedly
once owned Ellington Plantation in St. Charles Parish,
Louisiana.Witherspoon made her professional stage debut in with a New
Orleans stock company. She first appeared in New York at the Belasco
Theatre in the hit comedy The Concert, which was Leo Ditrichstein's
adaptation of the stage play, in which the -year-old actress portrayed
the -year-old Edith Gordon. Witherspoon appeared with Ditrichstein in
September for a four-month run at the Belasco and briefly the Theatre
Republic playing Fanny Lamont in The Temperamental Journey, from the
comedy Pour Vivre Heureux by Andre Rivoire and Yves Mirandeis. From
September into the following May at the Gaiety Theatre, she played
Sally McBride in Jean Webster’s comedy Daddy Long Legs.
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