"I do not myself have a very serene temperament", Dame Judith Anderson once remarked - and there were many who would leap to agree with her. This very formidable Australian-born tragedienne was not beautiful, but, boy, was she strong! You could believe her capable of anything, and in the role that made her famous to the world at large - Mrs. Danvers in the 1940 Hitchcock movie of "Rebecca" - she was quite terrifying. On stage, she played many great classical roles in the works of Shakespeare, Ibsen, Lorca and various ancient Greeks; she was to repeat a great personal triumph as Lady Macbeth
… More in two television productions. Although most of her career was spent outside the UK, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1965. In films, she'd try anything - co-starring with Jerry Lewis in "Cinderfella", playing an ancient Native American woman who speaks only in Sioux in "A Man Called Horse" and even turning up in Outer Space for one of the "Star Trek" movies. When she was pushing 90, she took a regular role in a soap opera, "Santa Barbara". She was working pretty much to the end of her long life. 
