Anna Lee

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anna Lee, MBE (2 January 191314 May 2004) was an English actress.

She was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith in Igtham, Kent, England, the daughter of a clergyman who encouraged her desire to act. She studied at the Royal Albert Hall, then debuted in 1932 with a bit part in the film His Lordship. When she and her first husband, director Robert Stevenson, moved to Hollywood she became associated with John Ford, appearing in several of his movies, notably How Green Was My Valley and Fort Apache. She was also a member of the Val Lewton "stock company," appearing in his classic production of Bedlam.

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 has a daughter, actress Venetia Stevenson, who was married to Don Everly (of the Everly Brothers) and who has three children, Stacy Everly, Erin Everly, and Edan Everly. Ms. Lee's son Jeffrey Byron is also an actor, but his real name is Tim Stafford. His father, George Stafford, was Anna Lee's second husband. Her third husband was the novelist Robert Nathan (The Bishop's Wife, Portrait of Jennie), to whom she was married until his death in 1985.

She had a small, but memorable, role as Sister Margaretta in The Sound of Music. Sister Margaretta was a supporter of Maria in the abbey, and was one of the two nuns who slowed the Nazis down by removing car engine parts, allowing the Von Trapps to escape. In 1994, she appeared in the leading role of the film What Can I Do?, a feature film directed by Wheeler Winston Dixon.

In later years, she became known to a new generation as the matriarch Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital and Port Charles until her sacking in 2003, which one of her sons attested would sap her will to live. She died not long after of pneumonia. Anna Lee was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

On 21 May 2004 she was posthumously awarded a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award; she was scheduled to receive the award for months, but had already died.

On 16 July 2004 "GH" aired a tribute to Lee by holding a memorial service for her character (Lila Quartermaine). Lee's son attended to receive the award on her behalf.

She was the goddaughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and lifelong friend of his daughter, Dame Jean Conan Doyle.

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