Margaret Wycherly

She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Sergeant York (1941) but lost to Mary Astor for The Great Lie (1941).

Margaret Wycherly was born in London, England to a Canadian father and American mother, Dr. and Mrs. J. L. De Wolfe. She was married to writer Bayard Veiller (1869–1943) in 1901. They had a son, Anthony Veiller (1903–1965), who also became a writer. She and Veiller divorced in 1922.

She was primarily a stage actress, appearing in one silent film. She starred in the 1907 Broadway production of The Primrose Path. In 1929, she appeared in her second film, but first talkie, The Thirteenth Chair, based on the 1916 play by her husband in which she had starred. The film was directed by Tod Browning and was in the genre of mystery-in-an-old-house melodrama. Twelve years later, Wycherley appeared in Sergeant York in 1941. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role of Mother York, though perhaps her best remembered screen role was as Ma Jarrett, the mother of the psychopathic gangster Cody Jarrett, in White Heat (1949), which starred James Cagney. Wycherly starred in several popular Broadway plays, including Mixed Marriage (1920), Tobacco Road (1933), Liliom, Six Characters in Search of an Author (1922), and The Thirteenth Chair (1916) (which role she reprised in the 1929 film of the same name). Her other films include Keeper of the Flame, The Yearling, Random Harvest, Forever Amber, The Man with a Cloak, and Johnny Angel. She portrayed Mrs. Brown, Claudia's mother, in the American television series Claudia (1952).

Wycherly died on 6 June 1956 at St. Clare's Hospital in New York City, at the age of 74. She was buried at the St Mary Churchyard, Bepton, Chichester District, West Sussex, England.

The Fight (1915) – Jane Thomas The Thirteenth Chair (1929) – Madame Rosalie La Grange Midnight (1934) – Mrs. Weldon Wanderlust (1938, Short) Victory (1940) – Mrs. Schomberg Sergeant York (1941) – Mother York Crossroads (1942) – Madame Pelletier Random Harvest (1942) – Mrs. Deventer Keeper of the Flame (1943) – Mrs. Forrest Assignment in Brittany (1943) – Mme. Henriette Corlay The Moon Is Down (1943) – Mme. Sarah Orden Hangmen Also Die! (1943) – Ludmilla Novotny Experiment Perilous (1944) – Maggie Johnny Angel (1945) – Miss Drumm The Yearling (1946) – Ma Forrester Something in the Wind (1947) – Grandma Read Forever Amber (1947) – Mrs. Spong The Loves of Carmen (1948) – Old Crone White Heat (1949) – Ma Jarrett The Man with a Cloak (1951) – Emma Flynn That Man from Tangier (1953) – Mrs. Sanders The President's Lady (1953) – Mrs. Robards