Aline MacMahon

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Aline Laveen MacMahon (born May 3, 1899 in McKeesport , Pennsylvania , † October 12, 1991 in New York City , New York ) was an American film actress who had a long and successful career in the theater between the 1920s and 1970s , Film and television had.

Life

MacMahon was the daughter of Jewish parents, her mother only died in 1985 at the age of 106. The family moved to New York soon after she was born. There Aline attended Erasmus Hall High School and Barnard College .

In the early 1920s, MacMahon began auditioning on Broadway stages. She got her first roles and from then on played repeatedly in the theater, even when her film career began in 1931 with Mervyn LeRoy's late release crime film . In the following decades she would commute between engagements in Hollywood productions and theater roles, especially on Broadway.

MacMahon has appeared as a character actress in over 40 movies. She has worked with directors Mervyn LeRoy , William A. Wellman , WS Van Dyke , Clarence Brown , Anatole Litvak , Mitchell Leisen , Jacques Tourneur , Fred Zinnemann and Anthony Mann , among others . She was also at the side of such well-known actors as Edward G. Robinson , Loretta Young , William Powell , Douglas Fairbanks Jr. , Paul Muni , Joan Crawford , Lionel Barrymore , Cary Grant , Marlene Dietrich , Fred MacMurray , Katharine Hepburn , Walter Huston , Montgomery Clift , Burt Lancaster , James Stewart , Glenn Ford , Maria Schell and Charlton Heston in front of the camera. While MacMahon usually remained a supporting actress in more expensive film productions, she was also seen as the leading actress in some smaller films: With Guy Kibbee , who played her film husband several times, she shot several comedies in the 1930s. In 1935, she played the title role of a socialite in Kind Lady , who is brought into his addiction by a lover played by Basil Rathbone .

MacMahon proved to be a versatile film actress: At first she was mainly seen as a quick-witted woman of the world, from her appearance as the betrayed wife of a cheater in silver dollars (1932) played by Edward G. Robinson , she often played serious roles with a certain tragedy . A highlight of her film career was the 1945 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the war drama Drachensaat . She was often cast as the mother or grandmother of the main character in her later film roles. She took on the role of Aunt Hannah in the play All the Way Home and the 1963 film adaptation of the same name, based on James Agee's novel A Death in the Family . From the mid-1960s onwards, MacMahon's filmography was limited to a few appearances in television series, and in 1975 she withdrew from the film business.

In 1928 Aline MacMahon married the architect and city planner Clarence Stein. The couple remained married for 47 years until his death in 1975. The marriage remained childless. Aline Laveen MacMahon died of pneumonia at the age of 92 .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Aline MacMahon  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aline MacMahon. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Axel Nissen: Mothers, Mammies and Old Maids: Twenty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Age Hollywood . McFarland, 2014, ISBN 978-0-7864-9045-5 ( google.de [accessed June 24, 2020]).
  3. ↑ Aline MacMahon. Retrieved June 24, 2020 .
  4. ^ Aline MacMahon | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos. Retrieved June 24, 2020 (American English).
personal data
SURNAME MacMahon, Aline
ALTERNATIVE NAMES MacMahon, Aline Laveen (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH McKeesport , Pennsylvania , United States
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1991
Place of death New York City , New York , United States