Sara Haden

Sara Haden was the daughter of silent screen star Charlotte Walker who was also a celebrated beauty in her day. Alas, Sara did not inherit her mother's good looks. She was actually born Catherine Haden in Center Point, Texas, on November 17 1898. There was nothing particularly outstanding about her childhood, except that her mother did not encourage her to become an actress. At least not to begin with. She was educated at the Dominican Convent in Galveston, then began acting in repertory with the James Hayden Players in Galveston and Dallas. She reputedly worked in early radio "as a dog impersonator for her own stories" but in 1921 debuted on Broadway in a rather more serious vein as Macduff's son (!) in "Macbeth". For the next eight years, she alternated between comedy and melodrama, scoring leads in such plays as "Trigger", "Lawful Larceny", "The Wrecker" and "Hot Water". Sara began her screen career in 1934, playing Etta Dawson in Spitfire (1934), thereby reprising her original Broadway performance in "Trigger". However, with her schoolmarmish looks she was quickly typecast as austere spinsters, eccentric aunts and crotchety dowagers. She had a certain knack for playing nasty (especially towards children), but beneath her villainous celluloid reputation lurked a great sense of humour. She was once quoted as saying (about her screen personae) "I'm always mean but there is no monotony about my meanness. I am mean in a great variety of fashions" and "I am glad my dog doesn't go the the movies. Maybe he wouldn't think as much of me if he did". As an MGM contract player from 1938 to 1946, Sara became best known as the starchy, but gentle Aunt Milly Forrest in the popular Andy Hardy series. Ironically, her best scenery-chewing moments came in Universal's cheaply made She-Wolf of London (1946), a typically sinister role for which Sara was paid a princely $2167 per week and (according to her lesser paid co-star June Lockhart) had a turn reminiscent of the Miss Danvers character (Judith Anderson) in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940). Sara remained much in demand as a television actress until her retirement from acting in 1965. She died as Catherine Haden Vandenburg in Woodland Hills, California, in September 1981 at the age of 82.