Sara Haden

Sara Haden, born Catherine Haden on November 17, 1898, was an American actress whose career spanned stage, film, and television across four decades. Sources differ on her birthplace, with some records indicating Center Point, Texas and others listing Galveston, Texas. She died on September 15, 1981, at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 82. From 1921 until their divorce in 1948, she was married to film actor Richard Abbott, whose birth name was Seamon Vandenberg.

Haden's stage career began in the early 1920s. By October 1920 she was already performing with Walter Hampden's acting troupe, and her Broadway activity continued from 1921 through 1938. Her Broadway credits include The Hill Between, Girl Trouble, Macbeth, Hot Water, and The Wrecker, among other productions.

In 1934 Haden made her film debut in Spitfire, a vehicle starring Katharine Hepburn. She subsequently became a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the late 1930s, where she was regularly cast in supporting roles across a wide range of the studio's productions. She is perhaps most closely identified with the Andy Hardy series starring Mickey Rooney, in which she portrayed the spinsterish Aunt Milly Forrest in 14 of the franchise's 16 entries. Her final film appearance came in Andy Hardy Comes Home in 1958. Among her other notable film credits are Captain January (1936), Poor Little Rich Girl (1936), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Woman of the Year (1942), The Bishop's Wife (1947), and the Our Gang comedy Come Back, Miss Pipps (1941), in which she played a beloved teacher who is unjustly dismissed.

Haden remained active on television well into the 1960s, with guest appearances on programs including Climax!, Bourbon Street Beat, Bonanza, and Perry Mason, where she played Florence Harvey in the 1959 episode "The Case of the Romantic Rogue." In 1965 she appeared as Dora Darling in the My Favorite Martian episode "Once Upon a Martian's Mother's Day," and that same year made a guest appearance on Dr. Kildare, which marked the end of her television career.