Hitchcock to Spock: Life and times of our Dame Judith Anderson 1897 - 1992

31-Jan-2012

Adelaide Festival Centre’s Performing Arts Collection is proud to present a stunning collection of one of the greatest dramatic actors of the 20th Century, Dame Judith Anderson.

Hitchcock to Spock: Life and times of our Dame Judith Anderson 1897 – 1992 is a tribute to the life of Dame Judith featuring costumes (one by Parisian fashion designer Jean Louis Bertault, Head of Design for Columbia Pictures and later Universal Pictures), programs, and photographs from the Dame Judith Anderson Collection, on display in the Festival Theatre foyer from 10 February – 4 June.

Dame Judith Anderson (born Frances Margaret Anderson-Anderson) was born in Adelaide in 1897 to James Anderson-Anderson, a silver miner with a gambling habit, and Jessie Margaret Saltmarsh. After finding a passion for acting whilst attending Rose Park Primary School and later Norwood High School, Frances Anderson made her debut on the professional stage touring Australia with Julius Knight’s company, before moving to America in 1918.

Over the sixty years that followed Judith Anderson became an icon of American theatre and, in 1985, a theatre on Broadway was named in her honour. Throughout her illustrious career Judith Anderson worked with some of the acting greats including Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Orson Welles, Tyrone Power, Kirk Douglas, Alfred Hitchcock, and Sir Cecil De Mille.

Her distinguished career spanning over eight decades embraced stage, film, and television, with some of her greatest performances being in Medea (1947, 1949, and 1955), Lady Macbeth (1941), Laura (1944), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). Numerous awards and acclamations followed and in 1960 the Queen made her a Dame of the British Empire for her services to the theatre – the first Australian born actress to be conferred with the title “Dame”.

Adelaide Festival Centre Artistic Director and CEO, Douglas Gautier, says, ‘Dame Judith Anderson is one of many great performers who have associated themselves with the ethos and spirit of the Adelaide Festival Centre – Dame Judith’s collection of memorabilia was donated to the Festival Centre at her request, and her remains are interred in the Garden Terrace wall. She was a great South Australian with an international reputation. We look back at the career of this outstanding artist, remembered in Hollywood as one of the great character actresses of her time.’