Janet Beecher

Janet Beecher was an American actress of stage and screen who spent decades as a leading and supporting player on Broadway. Born in Jefferson City, Missouri, and raised in Chicago, she first appeared on Broadway in The Education of Mr. Pipp (1905) and gave her last Broadway performance in The Late George Apley (1944), with plays such as A Bill of Divorcement (1921) and Courage (1928) in between. She made nearly fifty films between 1915 and 1943 and was best known as a character actress of Hollywood's golden age, often cast as a firm but compassionate matriarch. Among those roles were Ginger Rogers' mother in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), Tyrone Power's mother in The Mark of Zorro (1940) and Henry Fonda's mother in The Lady Eve (1941). She left films in 1943 and appeared on the Lux Video Theatre in 1952.