Evelyn Varden

Evelyn Varden (born Mae Evelyn Hall; June 12, 1893 – July 11, 1958) was an American character actress. Stage Born in Adair, Oklahoma, Varden was Cherokee and is listed on the Dawes Rolls as 1/32nd Cherokee by Blood. She began her career as a teenager in the first decade of the 20th century, acting with her aunts in a troupe that toured the western United States. She was on Broadway by age sixteen in 1910. It was not until the 1930s and into her forties that her stage career took off in the theater, notably playing Mrs. Gibbs, the small town matron who dreams of Paris, in the original production of Our Town. Varden's stage work mainly consisted of showy supporting roles although she did star in the ill-fated Return Engagement by Lawrence Riley. The 1950 melodrama Hilda Crane was a personal success for Varden although the play itself ran only two months. The following year she played the Nurse in a production of Romeo and Juliet starring Olivia de Havilland. Her final Broadway appearance in The Bad Seed was one of her acclaimed performances. Radio and television Varden occasionally appeared on radio from the early 1940s and well into the 1950s. She starred in radio productions of Hay Fever, The Silver Cord, and The Glass Menagerie among several other programs. She would later appear in a number of television productions during the 1950s, including an adaptation of Cradle Song, opposite Judith Anderson.