Blanche Yurka

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Blanche Yurka
Grave with befriended actress Florence Reed in Kensico Cemetery

Blanche Yurka (born June 18, 1887 in Saint Paul , Minnesota , as Blanche Yourka , † June 6, 1974 in New York City ) was an American actress.

Life

Blanche Yurka began her show career as an opera singer and had, among other things, smaller roles at the Metropolitan Opera . She switched to acting and made her debut as a stage actress on Broadway in 1906. Yurka was particularly successful in classical plays on Broadway, for example as Queen Gertrude in the famous Hamlet production with John Barrymore . Occasionally she also worked as a theater director and author. Although she had made her first film in 1917, Yurka was rather critical of film acting. Her most famous film role was the revolutionary Madame Defarge in the Dickens film Escape from Paris (1935), for which she received excellent reviews. She also played the widowed mother of Zachary Scott in Jean Renoir's western The Man from the South (1945). From the 1950s she was also featured in a number of television series.

In the years from 1922 to 1926 Yurka was married to the actor Ian Keith , the marriage remained childless. After working as an actress until the late 1960s, Blance Yurka died in 1974 at the age of 86 of complications from arteriosclerosis .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Yurka, Blanche
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yourka, Blanche
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint Paul , Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1974
Place of death New York City