Dame Judith Anderson AC DBE (1897–1992) was an Adelaide-born stage and film actress well known for her role as the sinister Mrs Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940). She made her stage debut in Sydney in A Royal Divorce (1915) and two years later migrated to America. Notable roles on Broadway in plays such as Cobra (1924), The Dove (1924–1926), Strange Interlude (1928–1929), Mourning Becomes Electra (1932) and Hamlet (1936) contributed to her growing reputation. Her performance in Medea (1947–1948) saw her acclaimed as America's leading stage performer and won her a Tony Award. She earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Rebecca and went on to appear in many films including Laura (1944), And Then There Were None (1945) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). She won an Emmy Award for her role as Lady Macbeth in the television production of Macbeth (1960). A style icon, Anderson regularly appeared in the pages of Vogue. In 1948 she was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Medal and she was knighted in 1960. In her late eighties Anderson was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance as Minx Lockridge in the soap opera, Santa Barbara (1984–1987). The year before she died she was awarded the Companion on the Order of Australia for her services to the performing arts.
