Gertrude Flynn

Gertrude Flynn (January 14, 1909 – October 16, 1996) was an American actress born in New York, New York, whose career spanned stage, film, and television across more than five decades. She was married to Asa Bordages, a feature writer for the New York World-Telegram who also wrote the 1941 play Brooklyn USA.

Flynn's Broadway career began in 1929 and extended through 1952, encompassing nearly two dozen productions. Her earliest stage appearances included The Unsophisticates in December 1929, in which she played Phyllis, and Penal Law 2010 in April 1930, where she took the role of Lucy Van Dam. She continued working steadily through the early 1930s in productions such as Gasoline Gypsies (1931), Three Times the Hour (1931), The Moon in the Yellow River (1932), American Dream (1933), Man Bites Dog (1933), Biography (1934), and Jigsaw (1934). Later that same year she appeared in both A Sleeping Clergyman as Cousin Minnie and Mother Lode as Julia Musette. In 1935 she played Ada in Noah and Anne in One Good Year, the latter of which ran from November 1935 into June 1936, making it among the longer-running productions of her Broadway tenure.

In January 1936 Flynn appeared as Kitty in The Puritan, and in February 1937 she played Rose Graham in Marching Song, which ran through April of that year. Her 1940 appearance as Dora Spenlow in Romantic Mr. Dickens, a drama centered on the romances of Charles Dickens, drew notice from The New York Times, which observed that she fit smoothly into the production's unorthodox portrayal of a literary figure. The show ran only five days, from December 2 to December 7, 1940. The following year she played Edna Scott in The Distant City, which closed after two performances in September 1941. Flynn's final Broadway credit came in 1952 with The Grass Harp, in which she portrayed the Baker's Wife during its run from March 27 to April 26.

Flynn's screen career launched in 1954 when she appeared as Lulu McGee in The Barefoot Contessa. Subsequent film roles included Mariya Peronskaya in War and Peace (1956), Miss Dill in Boy on a Dolphin (1957), a San Quentin Matron in I Want to Live! (1958), Mrs. Riggs in Rome Adventure (1962), Hannah Guthrie in Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964), and Mrs. O'Malley in Funny Girl (1968). She also appeared in A Summer Place (1959), Parrish (1961), The Thrill of It All (1963), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), Valley of the Dolls (1967), Blackbeard's Ghost (1968), Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978), and Bad Manners (1984).

On television, Flynn accumulated an extensive list of guest appearances. She played Rose Kramer in the 1961 Twilight Zone episode "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" and made four appearances on Perry Mason in the early 1960s, portraying Agatha Culpepper in "The Case of the Floating Stones," Mrs. Nichols in "The Case of the Irate Inventor" (1960), Sylvia Lambert in "The Case of the Bluffing Blast" (1963), and Rolasie Hedrick in "The Case of the Golfer's Gambit" (1966). During the 1965–66 season of Days of Our Lives she made five appearances as Anna Sawyer. She also guest starred on The Millionaire, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Loretta Young Show, Maverick, Have Gun – Will Travel, Dr. Kildare, Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, and Hill Street Blues, and appeared in a Sherlock Holmes episode as Maggie Blake in "The Case of the Belligerent Ghost." Her final television work came in 1987 on Outlaws.

Flynn's stage work continued beyond Broadway. In 1965 she performed as Mary Tyrone in the West Coast Repertory Company's production of Long Day's Journey Into Night, for which the Los Angeles Times singled out her performance as the saving grace of the evening. As late as 1977 she appeared in Summer Voices at the Circle Theater in Los Angeles.