Irene Tedrow

Irene Tedrow (August 3, 1907 – March 10, 1995) was an American character actress whose career spanned stage, film, television, and radio across more than six decades. Born in the early twentieth century, she died on March 10, 1995, from stroke complications in Hollywood at the age of 87. She was married to William Kent, a refugee from Nazi Germany, and the couple had two children, Roger and Enid.

Tedrow's theatrical training began under Ben Iden Payne, who directed the Memorial Theater at Stratford-on-Avon in England. In 1931, she was a member of the Chautauqua Repertory Theater, and she later accumulated three seasons of experience with Maurice Evans's troupe, performing both in New York City and on national tours. She was a founding member of San Diego's Old Globe Theater, where she began her career playing ingénue roles. In 1934, she portrayed 18 characters across multiple Shakespearean adaptations at The Old Globe during the Chicago Fair. She subsequently joined Orson Welles's Mercury Theater.

Her Broadway career extended from 1937 to 1969 and included several Shakespearean productions. She appeared in King Richard II, King Henry IV, Part II, and Hamlet, as well as the drama Our Town. The external record also notes her involvement in King Richard III in 1937, Hamlet from 1938 to 1939, King Henry IV, Part I in 1939, and a production of Pygmalion. Tedrow continued performing on Broadway into her eighties, with Our Town appearing among her credits as late as 1969. She also played Mrs. Webb in a production of Our Town at the Plumstead Playhouse.

In radio, Tedrow's work dated back at least to 1929, when, as a drama student at Carnegie Institute of Technology, she served as master of ceremonies and student director for a broadcast on WCAE. A 1937 listing places her among the actresses in a NBC Blue broadcast of George Bernard Shaw's Back to Methuselah. During the 1940s and 1950s, her radio credits included The Baby Snooks Show and a 1954 episode of Gunsmoke titled "The Promise." She was also known for her role as Janet Archer in the radio series Meet Corliss Archer.

Tedrow's television work began in the late 1940s, when she played Mrs. Ruggles during the first season of the comedy series The Ruggles from 1949 to 1950. She was also a regular actress on Dragnet from 1949 to 1970. From 1959 to 1963, she held a recurring role on the sitcom Dennis the Menace, portraying Mrs. Lucy Elkins. In 1955, she appeared on The Jack Benny Program as a contestant alongside Benny in a mock segment of the You Bet Your Life series hosted by Groucho Marx. In 1959, she played Mrs. Adams in the Maverick episode "Gun Shy," and in the early 1960s she made two guest appearances on Perry Mason, including the role of Amy Douglas in "The Case of the Ominous Outcast," as well as an appearance on Bonanza in the episode "Abner Willoughby's Return." In 1966, she was cast in The Addams Family as the governess Miss Thudd. Her television appearances across the mid-1940s into the 1970s also included the Lux Video Theatre, Jefferson Drum, The Real McCoys, Rawhide, Mannix, The Twilight Zone, Leave It to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, Dundee and the Culhane, Diff'rent Strokes, The Rockford Files, Facts of Life, Three's Company, and two episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show as Congresswoman Margaret Geddes.

In 1976, Tedrow portrayed Mary Ludlow Hall, Eleanor Roosevelt's grandmother, in the television film Eleanor and Franklin. That performance earned her one of the first Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Drama Special.