Margaret Wycherly

A distinguished actress in the New York theater, Wycherly was born in England but raised in the US, and was acting leading roles in vaudeville while still a teenager shortly before the turn of the century. Over the years, her genteel prettiness and acting talent graced plays ranging from "The Adding Machine" to "June Clegg" to "Six Characters in Search of an Author." Film work, though, did not begin for Wycherly until she was nearly 50, when she recreated the stage role her husband, playwright (and occasional film director and producer) Bayard Veiller wrote for her in "The Thirteenth Letter." As the psychic Madame LaGrange in Tod Browning's creaky but genuinely creepy early talkie rendition of 1929, Wycherly played with all the stops out, but her flamboyant work at least made for a barnstorming good time.