Alice Brady

Best-known for playing dithery society matrons in 1930s films, this performer actually had a long and varied career. The daughter of famed theatrical producer William A. Brady and stepdaughter of stage great Grace George, Alice Brady rejected a career in grand opera and began acting in stock companies. She first reached Broadway as an ingenue in "The Balkan Princess" (1911) and scored a hit in several Gilbert and Sullivan revivals the following year. Brady varied between light comedy and heavy drama over the next twenty years in shows like "Little Women" (1912, as Meg), "Sinners" (1915), "Anna Ascends" (1920), "Zander the Great" (1923), "The Bride of the Lamb" (1926) and "Love, Honor and Betray" (1930). Perhaps her biggest Broadway hit was as the tragic daughter Lavinia in Eugene O'Neill's "Mourning Becomes Electra" (1931).