Ethel Griffies

Ethel Griffies, born Ethel Woods on 26 April 1878 in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, was a British actress whose career on stage and screen spanned more than eight decades. The daughter of actor and manager Samuel Rupert Woods and actress Lillie Roberts, Griffies was brought onstage at the age of three and continued performing for the next 86 years. She died on 9 September 1975 in London, at the age of 97, following a stroke, and was considered one of the oldest working actors in the English-speaking theatre at the time of her death.

Griffies made her theatre debut in London in 1899 and went on to perform in stage productions across both the United Kingdom and the United States. Her Broadway career extended from 1924 to 1967, during which she appeared in numerous productions including The Natural Law, Ivanov, The Autumn Garden, Legend of Sarah, and A Very Rich Woman, among others. She acted alongside figures including May Whitty, Ellen Terry, and Anna Neagle over the course of her stage work.

Her screen career began with brief film appearances from 1917 onward, before she transitioned into a full film career in 1930 with the film adaptation of Old English. She went on to accumulate more than 90 film and television credits. Among her most recognized film roles was Grace Poole, which she portrayed in two separate adaptations of Jane Eyre — the 1934 Monogram version and the more widely seen 1943 version. In 1963, she appeared both in Billy Liar and as the elderly ornithologist Mrs. Bundy in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, the latter role becoming one of her most enduring screen performances. Griffies retired from acting in 1967.

In her personal life, Griffies married actor Walter Beaumont in 1900; he died in 1910. She later married actor Edward Cooper in 1917, who predeceased her by nearly two decades.