Anna Lee

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Birthday:

2 January 1913, Ightham, Kent, England, UK

Birth Name:

Joan Boniface Winnifrith

Height:

163 cm

The daughter of a clergyman, Anna Lee was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith and encouraged to pursue an acting career by her father. After training at London's Royal Albert Hall, she took to the boards and later began appearing in English films, first as an extra, then working her way up to featured parts and finally earning the unofficial title "Queen of the Quota Quickies." Lee and her husband, director Robert Stevenson, relocated to Hollywood in the late 1930s, and Lee began starring in stateside productions as well as becoming a fixture of the John Ford stock company (she appeared in How Green Was My Valley (1941), Fort Apache (1948) and a half-dozen others). In 1970, she became the seventh wife of novelist, poet and playwright Robert Nathan (Portrait of Jennie (1948), The Bishop's Wife (1947)); they married three months after they met. Now widowed, Lee soldiers on, regularly playing wealthy Lila Quartermaine on the TV soaper General Hospital (1963). Show less «

I want to die with my boots on. English actors have a great reputation for longevity.

[on working with John Wayne in Seven Sinners (1940)] Marlene [Marlene Dietrich] didn't want a blonde in the picture--other than herself. So ...Show more »

[on working with John Wayne in Seven Sinners (1940)] Marlene [Marlene Dietrich] didn't want a blonde in the picture--other than herself. So it was the first time I had to rinse [color] my hair. John Wayne was a lovely man, what I would call a typical American--very nice, very modest. His stature as a star never came up, although we worked together many times over the years. On our first encounter, we were engaged in conversation and he asked me if I was a Republican. Since I was new to this country, I thought he was asking if I was a publican, which is a person who keeps a publichouse for drinking beer. I told him I was not a publican, but that I did enjoy beer. [Laughs] That really confused him! Show less «