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![]() DAME JUDITH
ANDERSON
Minx Lockridge,
1984-87Dame Judith Anderson starred on Santa Barbara from 1984 to 1987, showing us her celebrated profile and stage presence as the feisty matriarch Minx Lockridge. When SB's creators, Jerome and Bridget Dobson, asked her to play the part, Anderson had been a resident of the real Santa Barbara for 30 years and she was an avid follower of General Hospital, another daytime drama the Dobsons had written for. "My character, Minx Lockridge, is eccentric, willful, funny, naughty – all the goodies that make for a great character," Anderson said before SB's premiere. "I'm pulling characteristics out of myself and passing them on." The role earned her a 1985-86 Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Daytime Drama Series. Early life and career Anderson began her motion picture career in 1933 in Blood Money, and her many films include such classics as Kings Row, Laura, Diary of a Chambermaid, Red House, And Then There Were None, Tycoon, Pursued, Salome, The Ten Commandments, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Man Called Horse. One of her most memorable screen portrayals was as the malicious Mrs. Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. One of her last theatrical features was Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. She also starred in two television films, The Underground Man and The Borrowers, both for NBC's Hallmark Hall of Fame series. She received two Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth in Hallmark productions of Macbeth, in 1955 and in 1961. In 1960, for her "distinguished contribution to the stage," the actress was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. Death Louise Sorel, who played Augusta, told Soap Opera Digest that Anderson was "the closest thing to a role model" that she had had, and much more. "She was a pain in the ass, but I loved her to death, and I was almost mute when she died. I had a very hard time with it. She was fierce and you couldn't lie to her. She was always on me about the theater, saying, 'You must go back to the theater. You belong on the stage.' She'd never seen me on stage until she finally saw us do this rather poor version of Hamlet with Lane Davies. She was very quiet afterwards. She was upset about what they did with me on SB, and most of the time she was railing about it, even when she was long gone from it. But she was a truthteller, and she was tough." |
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