From London to Broadway to Hollywood: Jessica Tandy
Written by Nancy Steinbach
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VOICE ONE:
I'm Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with the Special English program, People in America. Today, we tell the story of Jessica Tandy who died in nineteen ninety-four. She won many awards for her acting during the almost seventy years she performed.
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VOICE ONE:
Jessica Tandy probably is best known for winning an Academy Award in nineteen eighty-nine for the movie "Driving Miss Daisy. " She was the oldest person to have won the award. But for many years, she had received praise for her great performances.
Tandy appeared in more than one hundred stage shows, twenty-five movies and on many television programs during her sixty-seven years of acting. Most of her performances were in the United States, although she did not become an American citizen until nineteen fifty-four.
VOICE TWO:
Jessica Tandy was born in London, England, in nineteen-oh-nine. Her father died when she was twelve years old. Her mother taught and took other jobs at night to make extra money for her three children. Jessica's older brothers showed an interest in the theater. They would put on shows in their London home. Jessica said later that she was terrible in all of them. But she said taking part in those plays as a child created a desire in her to be someone else.
Jessica Tandy
VOICE ONE:
Jessica loved going to the theater. And she loved British writer William Shakespeare. Years later, she acted in many of Shakespeare's plays, with great actors like John Gielgud and Lawrence Olivier. This love of the theater led her to attend an acting school in nineteen twenty-four. When she was eighteen years old, she performed in her first play. It was called "The Manderson Girls. " She did not earn enough money to pay for the five different dresses she had to wear in the play. She solved the problem by sewing them herself.
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VOICE TWO:
Jessica Tandy always thought she was plain-looking. So did most theater professionals. She said people in the theater knew she was a good actress, but did not believe she was pretty enough to be a success. She noted that they said, "She is plain but on the stage she looks all right."
Pictures of Jessica Tandy do not suggest that this is true. She just looked different from the leading women actors of the day. Later, she said that it was good that she was not considered pretty. She said she got more interesting parts that way.
VOICE ONE:
In nineteen thirty-two, critics in London recognized her great acting skill in her performance in the play "Children in Uniform." That part gave her what she said was one of the moments she loved most in the theater. She said at one performance, people watching were so moved they continued to sit quietly when the play ended. That same year, she married actor Jack Hawkins. They had a daughter, Susan.
Tandy continued to work in the theater in London. By nineteen forty, her marriage was ending. So she took her daughter and moved to the United States to escape World War Two. In New York City, she met a young actor named Hume Cronyn. Two years later they married and moved to Hollywood. By nineteen forty-five, they had two children.
VOICE TWO:
In California, Hume Cronyn was getting good parts in movies. But Tandy was not. She got only small parts, when she got them at all. She said the producers in Hollywood did not take her seriously as an actress. She began to feel like a failure. Jessica Tandy was considering not acting anymore. But then her husband did something that changed her life. He gave her the lead part in a play he was directing in Los Angeles. It was "Portrait of a Madonna" by Tennessee Williams. She played a lonely woman. Critics praised her.
Tennessee Williams came to Los Angeles from New York just to see her in the show. He said later that he knew he had found the actress to play the lead in his new play, "A Streetcar Named Desire." That play opened in New York in nineteen forty-seven. Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter were the stars. It won a Pulitzer Prize and many other awards.
