Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Jane Darwell (born October 15, 1879; died August
13, 1967 in film|1967) was an United
States|American theater and film actor|actress.

Born Patti Woodward in Palmyra, Missouri, Darwell
originally intended to become a Circus (performing
art)|circus performer, however her family objected
and she compromised by becoming an actress.  She
began her acting career in theater productions in
Chicago, Illinois|Chicago and made her first film
appearance in 1913.  She appeared in almost twenty
films over the next two years before returning to
the stage.  

After a 15 year absence from films, she resumed
her film career in 1930 with a role in  Tom
Sawyer,  and her career as a Hollywood character
actress began.  Short, stout and plain faced she
was quickly cast in a succession of films usually
as the mother of one of the major characters.  She
won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
as Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), a role
she was given at the insistence of the film's
star, Henry Fonda.

By the end of her career she had appeared in more
than 170 films, including Huckleberry Finn (1931),
Roman Scandals (1933), Jesse James (1939
film)|Jesse James, The Rains Came, Gone With the
Wind (all 1939), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), My
Darling Clementine (1946) and Caged (1950). 
Always popular within the film industry, her final
role as the old woman feeding the birds in Mary
Poppins  was personally given to her by Walt
Disney.  

She died from a myocardial infarction|heart attack
in Woodland Hills, California and was interred in
Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

Jane Darwell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at
6735 Hollywood Boulevard.

==External links==

*imdb name|id=0002034|name=Jane Darwell