Lucille La Verne

Lucille La Verne was an American actress who built a long stage career before finding film audiences through her voice work. Born near Nashville, Tennessee, she began in summer stock as a child and performed with small touring troupes as a teenager, playing Juliet and Lady Macbeth at 14. Her Broadway debut came in 1888, and she later led stock companies in San Francisco and Boston and ran her own. Her Broadway hits included Uncle Tom's Cabin, Seven Days and Way Down East, and her greatest triumph came in 1923 when she created Widow Caggle in Sun Up, a role she played over 3,000 times on Broadway and on tour. She also wrote and directed for the stage. Her film debut came in 1915 with Over Night, and she appeared in Orphans of the Storm (1921), but she was best remembered for voicing the Evil Queen in Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), her final film.