Ellen Corby
 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (September 2012) |
Ellen Corby | |
|---|---|
| File:Ellen Corby.jpg Corby in 1978 | |
| Born | Ellen Hansen June 3, 1911 Racine, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Died | April 14, 1999 (aged 87) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1933–97 |
| Spouse | Francis Corby (1934-44) |
Ellen Hansen Corby (June 3, 1911 – April 14, 1999) was an American actress. She is most widely remembered for the role of "Grandma Esther Walton" on the CBS television series The Waltons, for which she won three Emmy Awards. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Aunt Trina in I Remember Mama.
Early life
Ellen Hansen was born in Racine, Wisconsin to Danish parents, and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. An interest in amateur theater while in high school led her to Atlantic City in 1932 where she briefly worked as a chorus girl. She moved to Hollywood that same year and got a job as a script girl at RKO Studios and Hal Roach Studios, where she frequently worked on the Our Gang comedies, alongside her future husband, cinematographer Francis Corby. She held that position for the next twelve years and took acting lessons on the side. [citation needed]
Career
Corby began her career as a writer working on the Paramount Western Twilight on the Trail and 1947's Hoppy's Holiday. Although she had had bit parts in more than thirty films in the 1930s and 1940s, including Babes in Toyland and It's a Wonderful Life, her first credited acting job was in 1945, playing a maid in RKO's Cornered. In 1948 she received an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as a lovelorn aunt in I Remember Mama (1948). Over the next four decades, she worked steadily in both film and television, often playing maids, secretaries, waitresses or gossips. She was a favorite in western films (including Shane, 1953) and had a recurring role as "Henrietta Porter" in the western television series Trackdown (1957 – 1959), starring Robert Culp.
Other television appearances included Wagon Train, Cheyenne, The Restless Gun (two episodes), The Rifleman, Fury, The Donna Reed Show, I Love Lucy, Tightrope, Bonanza, Meet McGraw (as a maid), The Virginian, Channing, Alfred Hitchcock Presents,]]"., and "The Partners".
Batman, Get Smart, Gomer Pyle, The Addams Family, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show, and the Night Gallery episode, "Fright Night." She also had a recurring role in the 1965-1967 TV series [[Please Don't Eat the Daisies (TV series)|Please Don't Eat the Daisies
Her best-known role came in 1971 as "Grandma Esther Walton" on the made-for-TV film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, which served as the pilot for The Waltons. Her husband, Zebulon Walton, was portrayed by famous ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. (Bergen and Corby had played an engaged, later married, couple 23 years earlier in I Remember Mama.) Corby would go on to resume the role on the weekly television series The Waltons (she was the only adult actor from the original Homecoming pilot to carry her role over to the series). Actor Will Geer played her husband in the series from 1972 until his death in 1978, at which time the character of Zebulon Walton was also buried. The series ran from 1972–1981, and resulted in six sequel films. For her work in The Waltons, she won three Emmy Awards and earned three more nominations as Best Supporting Actress. She left the show early in 1977, due to a massive stroke she suffered, which impaired her speech and severely limited her mobility and function. She returned to the series during the final episode of the 1977-78 season, with her character depicted as also recovering from a stroke. She remained a regular on The Waltons through the end of the 1978-79 season, with Esther Walton struggling with her stroke deficits as Corby was in real life. Although Corby was able to communicate after her stroke, her character's lines were usually limited to one word or one-phrased dialogue; her role dropped to recurring during The Waltons' final two seasons, and she later resumed her "Grandma Walton" role in five of the six Waltons reunion movies during released between 1982 and 1997.
Private life
Corby was married to Francis Corby, a film director 20 years her senior, from 1934 until they divorced in 1944. Francis Corby lived until 1956. The union was childless. She suffered a serious stroke in November 1976 but recovered and returned to her role on The Waltons in March 1978. Her stroke was written into the show, with Grandma Walton also suffering a stroke and struggling to regain her speech. Her final role was in the Walton's reunion film A Walton Easter (1997).
Corby died at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, aged 87, following several years of declining health. Her mausoleum is in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Filmography
Writer
- The Broken Coin (1936) (as Ellen Hansen)
- Twilight on the Trail (1941) (screenplay)
- Hoppy's Holiday (1947) (story)
Miscellaneous crew
- Swiss Miss (film) (1938) (script supervisor) (uncredited)
External links
- 1911 births
- 1999 deaths
- Actors from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- American film actresses
- American television actresses
- Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners
- Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (television) winners
- American people of Danish descent
- Deaths from stroke
- Disease-related deaths in California
- Emmy Award winners
- 20th-century actors
- American actresses
- Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)