Anne Revere

Anne Revere (June 25, 1903 – December 18, 1990) was an American stage and film actress born in New York City and a direct descendant of American Revolution figure Paul Revere. Her father, Clinton, worked as a stockbroker, and she grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and in Westfield, New Jersey, where she completed her secondary education at Westfield High School. She earned her degree from Wellesley College in 1926, having found her footing in dramatics there after earlier unsuccessful attempts to participate in theatrical groups. She subsequently trained as an actress at the American Laboratory School under Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boleslavsky.

Revere built her early professional experience in regional and stock theater before making her Broadway debut in 1931 in The Great Barrington. In 1934 she originated the role of Martha Dobie in Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour on Broadway, and that same year traveled to Hollywood to reprise her stage role in the film adaptation of Double Door. Her Broadway career spanned nearly three decades, from 1931 to 1960, and included productions such as As You Like It, The Three Sisters, Four Twelves Are 48, Cue for Passion, Jolly's Progress, and Toys in the Attic. Her performance in Toys in the Attic, also written by Hellman, earned her the 1960 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.

Alongside her stage work, Revere established herself as a prolific character actress in Hollywood, appearing in close to three dozen films between 1934 and 1951. She was frequently cast as a maternal figure, playing mother to Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, and Montgomery Clift across various productions. She received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress — for The Song of Bernadette (1943), National Velvet (1945), and Gentleman's Agreement (1947) — and won the award for her role in National Velvet. Additional film credits included The Keys of the Kingdom, Body and Soul, and A Place in the Sun, the last of which marked the end of her screen work for approximately two decades.

Revere was a member of the board of the Screen Actors Guild and an active member of the American Communist Party. In 1950, her name appeared in Red Channels: The Report on Communist Influence in Radio and Television, and she was subsequently blacklisted. She resigned from the Screen Actors Guild board in 1951 and later invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Her return to film came with Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon. Television director Joseph Hardy advocated for her casting in the soap opera A Time for Us in 1962, and following that appearance she worked regularly in television, including on A Flame in the Wind, The Edge of Night, Search for Tomorrow, and Ryan's Hope.

Revere married theater director Samuel Rosen on April 11, 1935, and the two remained together until his death in 1984. Together they relocated to New York and opened an acting school, and Revere continued to work in summer stock and regional theater throughout her later career. She had also supported Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace's presidential campaign in 1948. Revere died of pneumonia at her home in Locust Valley, New York, on December 18, 1990, at the age of 87, and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.