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Ann Sothern (January 22, 1909 – March 15, 2001) was an American film actress with a career spanning six decades.

Born Harriette Arlene Lake in Valley City, North Dakota, Sothern left home very young and began her film career as an extra in Broadway Nights (1927), aged 18. During 1929 and 1930, she appeared as a chorus girl in such films as The Show of Shows and Whoopee! (as one of the "Goldwyn Girls").

In 1934 she signed a contract with Columbia Pictures but after two years the studio released her from this contract, and she was signed by RKO Pictures in 1936. After a string of films that failed to attract an audience, Sothern left RKO and was signed to MGM, making her first film for them in 1939.

In a role originally intended for Jean Harlow, Sothern was cast in Maisie (1939) as brassy Brooklyn burlesque dancer Mary Anastasia O'Connor who also goes by the stage name Maisie Revere. In Mary C. McCall Jr.'s screenplay of Wilson Collison's novel, Maisie is stranded penniless in a small Wyoming town, takes a job as a ranch maid and becomes caught in a web of romantic entanglements. After years of trying, Sothern had her first real success, and a string of "Maisie" comedy sequels followed, beginning with Congo Maisie (1940) and continuing until Undercover Maisie (1947) in which Maisie infiltrates a gang of con men headed by a phony swami. Reviewing Swing Shift Maisie (1943), Time praised Sothern:

Swing Shift Maisie (MGM) is one of those B-budget marrow bones which are tossed to the simple appetites of the sticks, but which many a choosy cinemaddict prefers to the average A-budget epic. In part this is due to cinemactress Ann Sothern, one of the smartest comediennes in the business. In part it is due to a crisp script, which manages to lather up a good deal of apt comic comment on the lives and habits of U.S. defense workers. The film's central characters are Good Girl Maisie Revere (Miss Sothern in her sixth Maisie picture) and Bad Girl Iris (Jean Rogers). They are sidelighted by a cocky test pilot, for whom Maisie falls hard, and by a bolt & nut man—the chinny type who assures every new girl in the plant that he knows all the angles. Maisie, an ex-showgirl, has an undulant walk that elicits wolf calls from welders' masks as she saunters about the plant. But Maisie is a model of kindliness, courage, efficiency. [1]

On November 24, 1941 Sothern appeared in the Lux Radio Theater adaptation of Maisie Was a Lady, and the popularity of the film series led to her own radio program, The Adventures of Maisie, broadcast on CBS from 1945 to 1947, on Mutual in 1952 and in syndication from 1949 to 1953.

When she appeared in A Letter to Three Wives (1949), the film earned her excellent reviews but did not stimulate her career. During the 1950s she made few movies and was often on television. She was the lead in the series Private Secretary from 1953 until 1957, and The Ann Sothern Show from 1958 until 1961. Both programs were successful and earned Sothern four Emmy Award nominations. Previously a stunning beauty, Southern had a bout of hepatitis which left her with a bloated, overweight appearance; so she preferred not to be seen. In 1965 she was heard as the voice of Mom in the series My Mother the Car, which co-starred Jerry Van Dyke. The series was unsuccessful and is often cited as one of the worst situation comedies ever produced, but it has gained a cult following over the years.

During this period, Sothern made occasional guest appearances on The Lucy Show with her old MGM cohort, Lucille Ball. In 1967 her old boss, Desi Arnaz, the first husband of Lucille Ball, approached her to co-star with Eve Arden as battling neighbors in The Mothers-In-Law but NBC felt that Sothern's style was too similar to Arden's. The very differently styled and younger Kaye Ballard got the part.

She resumed working sporadically on television until the mid-1980s, including a television remake of her earlier success A Letter to Three Wives. Her final film role was in The Whales of August in 1987.

Her role as the neighbor of elderly sisters, played by Lillian Gish and Bette Davis, brought Sothern her first and only Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination after 60 years in the business. However, she lost to Olympia Dukakis.

She was married to actor Robert Sterling from 1943 to 1949, and their daughter is actress Tisha Sterling. She retired from acting, and moved in 1984 to Ketchum, Idaho, where she died from heart failure at the age of 92. She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for motion pictures (1612 Vine Street) and television (1634 Vine Street).

• Broadway Nights (1927)
• Hearts in Exile (1929)
• The Show of Shows (1929)
• Song of the West (1930)
• Hold Everything (1930)
• Doughboys (1930)
• Whoopee! (1930)
• Footlight Parade (1933)
• Broadway Through a Keyhole (1933)
• Let's Fall in Love (1933)
• Melody in Spring (1934)
• The Hell Cat (1934)
• The Party's Over (1934)
• Blind Date (1934)
• Kid Millions (1934)
• Folies-Bergere de Paris (1935)
• Eight Bells (1935)
• Hooray for Love (1935)
• The Girl Friend (1935)
• Grand Exit (1935)
• You May Be Next (1936)
• Hell-Ship Morgan (1936)
• Don't Gamble with Love (1936)
• My American Wife (1936)
• Walking on Air (1936)
• Smartest Girl in Town (1936)
• Dangerous Number (1937)
• There Goes My Girl (1937)
• Fifty Roads to Town (1937)
• Super-Sleuth (1937)
• Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937) (Cameo)
• There Goes the Groom (1937)
• She's Got Everything (1937)
• Trade Winds (1938)
• Maisie (1939)
• Hotel for Women (1939)
• Fast and Furious (1939)
• Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President (1939)
• Congo Maisie (1940)
• Brother Orchid (1940)
• Gold Rush Maisie (1940)
• Dulcy (1940)
• Maisie Was a Lady (1941)
• Ringside Maisie (1941)
• Lady Be Good (1941)
• Maisie Gets Her Man (1942)
• Panama Hattie (1942)
• You, John Jones (1943) (short subject)
• Three Hearts for Julia (1943)
• Thousands Cheer (1943)
• Swing Shift Maisie (1943)
• Cry 'Havoc' (1943)
• Maisie Goes to Reno (1944)
• Up Goes Maisie (1946)
• Undercover Maisie (1947)
• April Showers (1948)
• Words and Music (1948)
• A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
• The Judge Steps Out (1949)
• Tension (1950) (appears on magazine cover)
• Nancy Goes to Rio (1950)
• Shadow on the Wall (1950)
• The Blue Gardenia (1953)
• The Best Man (1964)
• Lady in a Cage (1964)
• Sylvia (1965)
• Chubasco (1968)
• The Killing Kind (1973)
• Golden Needles (1974)
• Crazy Mama (1975)
• The Manitou (1978)
• The Little Dragons (1980)
• The Whales of August (1987)

• Briggs, Colin. Cordially Yours, Ann Sothern. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media, 2006.

• Ann Sothern at the Internet Movie Database
• Ann Sothern at the TCM Movie Database
• Ann Sothern at the Internet Broadway Database
• Sitcoms Online: The Ann Sothern Show
• Movie Magazine International: Ann Sothern
• Time: Review of Swing Shift Maisie (October 18, 1943)
• The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms