Known For:
Acting
Birthday:
September 24, 1878
Place of Birth:
London, England, UK
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nora Cecil (September 20, 1878 – May 1, 1951) was a British-American character actress whose 30-year career spanned both the silent and sound film eras. Cecil's career began on the stage, where she appeared in a single Broadway production, The Sleeping Beauty and the Beast, which ran for more than 240 performances at the Broadway Theatre in 1901-02. (A 1930 newspaper article says that Cecil "made her debut, three decades ago, on the London stage.")
Cecil appeared in well over 100 feature films and film shorts.
In 1915, she moved from the stage into films, her first appearance being in a starring role in The Arrival of Perpetua, directed by Émile Chautard. She often played "thin-lipped, stern-visaged dowagers and forbidding mothers-in-law" and "welfare workers, landladies, schoolmistresses and maiden aunts".
One of the most significant roles was in the W.C. Fields vehicle, The Old Fashioned Way in 1934. Some of the other notable films in which Cecil appeared include: Ernst Lubitsch's historical romance, The Merry Widow, starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald; the 1939 version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, starring Mickey Rooney; the John Ford classic, Stagecoach, with John Wayne.
Her final acting performance was in a featured role in Mourning Becomes Electra in 1947, starring Rosalind Russell.
Year | Movie | Role |
---|---|---|
1964 | The Big Parade of Comedy | Actress in 'Hollywood Party' (archive footage) (uncredited) |
1947 | Mourning Becomes Electra | Louisa Ames |
1947 | The Sea of Grass | Mrs. Ryan - Nurse (uncredited) |
1946 | Big Town | Miss Lovelace (uncredited) |
1946 | Two Sisters from Boston | Mrs. Mulberry - Recital Guest (uncredited) |
1946 | The Missing Lady | Miss Millie |
1945 | Lady on a Train | |
1944 | The Thin Man Goes Home | Miss Peavy |
1944 | The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek | Hospital Nurse (uncredited) |
1944 | Hail the Conquering Hero | Train Ticket Clerk (uncredited) |
1943 | The Unknown Guest | Martha Williams |
1942 | I Married a Witch | Harriet Wooley (uncredited) |
1942 | Apache Trail | Passenger (uncredited) |
1942 | The Wife Takes a Flyer | Miss Updike |
1942 | Obliging Young Lady | Miss Hollyrod - Bird Lover (uncredited) |
1941 | A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob | Charwoman |
1941 | Three Girls About Town | Casket Customer |
1940 | The Bank Dick | Lompoc Ladies Auxiliary (uncredited) |
1940 | Lucky Partners | Women's Club President (uncredited) |
1940 | Little Men | Head of Orphanage |
1940 | Young People | Righteous Old Lady |
1940 | Those Were the Days! | Mrs. Moffett |
1939 | What a Life | Miss Eggleston |
1939 | Stagecoach | Boone's Landlady (uncredited) |
1939 | The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mrs. Shackleford (uncredited) |
1939 | The Story of Alexander Graham Bell | Miss Jenkins |
1939 | Union Pacific | Snoring Woman on Train (uncredited) |
1939 | Some Like It Hot | Mrs. Beckett (uncredited) |
1938 | Mr. Boggs Steps Out | Widow Peddie |
1938 | International Settlement | English Woman |
1937 | Night of Mystery | |
1937 | Three Smart Boys | Miss Witherspoon, Superintendent |
1937 | Night Must Fall | |
1937 | Partners in Crime | Housekeeper |
1937 | She Asked for It | Elderly lady (uncredited) |
1937 | Easy Living | Miss Swerf |
1937 | Champagne Waltz | Train Passenger |
1937 | Nothing Sacred | Schoolteacher (uncredited) |
1937 | Borrowing Trouble | Dressmaker |
1937 | The Mighty Treve | Old Maid at Dog Show |
1937 | Blossoms On Broadway | Leader of Committee (uncredited) |
1936 | Under Your Spell | School Teacher (uncredited) |
1936 | College Holiday | Miss Elkins (uncredited) |
1936 | Little Miss Nobody | Mrs. Robinson |
1936 | Fury | Albert's Mother (uncredited) |
1936 | Two in the Dark | Mrs. Potter, Landlady (uncredited) |
1936 | The Big Broadcast of 1937 | Home Economics Woman |
1936 | Dancing Pirate | Landlady (uncredited) |
1936 | Let's Make a Million | |
1936 | Collegiate | Miss Curtiss |
1936 | Laughing at Trouble | Mrs. Wigby - Townswoman |
1936 | Girl of the Ozarks | Miss Trent |
1935 | Car 99 | Granny Adams |
1935 | Slightly Static | Beauty Products Announcer (uncredited) |
1935 | Way Down East | Townswoman at Party |
1935 | Biography of a Bachelor Girl | Ship's Matron (uncredited) |
1935 | Memories and Melodies | Customer (uncredited) |
1935 | Gold Diggers of 1935 | Housekeeper (uncredited) |
1935 | Vagabond Lady | Miss Perkins (uncredited) |
1934 | Mixed Nuts | Mrs. Twitchett |
1934 | Laughing Boy | Schoolteacher |
1934 | Search for Beauty | Miss Pettigrew |
1934 | One-Horse Farmers | Subway Passenger (uncredited) |
1934 | Opened by Mistake | Head Nurse |
1934 | The Merry Widow | Animal Woman (uncredited) |
1934 | The Old-Fashioned Way | Mrs. Wendelschaffer |
1934 | Upperworld | Housekeeper (uncredited) |
1934 | Chained | Edith (uncredited) |
1934 | You're Telling Me! | Mrs. Price |
1934 | The Spectacle Maker | Duchess |
1934 | Bachelor Bait | Mrs. Trutmanner (uncredited) |
1934 | Once to Every Woman | Miss Baxter’s Sister (uncredited) |
1933 | Nature in the Wrong | Muriel's mother |
1933 | Asleep in the Feet | Female Police Officer |
1933 | Peg o' My Heart | Smythe (maid) |
1933 | Going Hollywood | Briarcroft's Teacher |
1933 | Stage Mother | Miss Gilford, Kitty's Music Store Boss (uncredited) |
1933 | King of the Jungle | Spinster in park (uncredited) |
1933 | Fast Workers | Tall Window-Shopper (Uncredited) |
1933 | Design for Living | Tom's Secretary (uncredited) |
1933 | Wreckety Wrecks | Miss Winterbottom |
1933 | Meet the Baron | Professor Winterbottom (uncredited) |
1933 | Doctor Bull | Aunt Emily Banning |
1933 | Hold Your Man | Miss Campbell (uncredited) |
1932 | Girl Grief | Miss Tuttle, Principal |
1932 | Hot Saturday | Gossip on Telephone (Uncredited) |
1932 | Amateur Daddy | Saleslady |
1932 | Mr. Bride | Mrs. Cecil |
1932 | Young Bride | Landlady (uncredited) |
1932 | Pack Up Your Troubles | Welfare Association Officer (uncredited) |
1932 | The Bitter Tea of General Yen | Missionary |
1932 | The Millionaire Cat | Aunt Mathilda |
1931 | Arrowsmith | Nurse (uncredited) |
1931 | East Lynne | Charity Bazaar Committee |
1931 | Everything’s Rosie | Hotel Proprietress |
1931 | The Ruling Voice | Malcom's Nurse (uncredited) |
1931 | Street Scene | Alice Simpson - Welfare Worker |
1931 | Millie | Helen and Angie's Landlady (uncredited) |
1930 | Seven Days Leave | Amelia Twymley |
1930 | Only Saps Work | Mrs. Partridge (uncredited) |
1930 | The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu | |
1930 | Little Accident | Dr. Zernecke |
1930 | Hell's Angels | Helen's Maid (uncredited) |
1929 | Seven Footprints to Satan | Old Witch |
1929 | Footlights and Fools | (uncredited) |
1928 | A Trick of Hearts | The Mayor |
1928 | The Baby Cyclone | Mrs. Crandall |
1928 | The Cavalier | Lucia's Aunt |
1928 | Driftwood | Mrs. Prouty |
1927 | The Silent Rider | Mrs. Randall |
1927 | The Demi-Bride | School Teacher |
1927 | The Devil Dancer | Julia |
1927 | Sensation Seekers | Mrs. Lodge |
1927 | The Fortune Hunter | Betty Carpenter |
1927 | Girls | Matron Helen Hunt |
1927 | Too Many Crooks | (uncredited) |
1927 | Born to Battle | Ma Cowan |
1926 | Chip of the Flying U | Dr. Cecil Grantham |
1926 | Midnight Faces | Mrs. Hart |
1925 | His Majesty, Bunker Bean | Countess Casanova |
1924 | The Deadwood Coach | Matilda Shields - in play |
1922 | Manslaughter | Lydia's Chaperone (uncredited) |
1922 | Timothy's Quest | Townswoman |
1921 | Footfalls | |
1920 | The Daughter Pays | |
1920 | Red Foam | |
1919 | An Amateur Widow | |
1919 | Woman, Woman! | Mrs. Lindsay |
1918 | American Buds | Emily |
1918 | Prunella | |
1918 | Love Net | Miss Prudence Tilly |
1918 | By Hook or Crook | Aunt Marie |
1917 | The Wild Girl | Undetermined Role (uncredited) |
1917 | A Royal Romance | Miss McPherson |
1917 | The Poor Little Rich Girl | One of Gwendolyn's Teachers (uncredited) |
1917 | Tillie Wakes Up | Gossip in Ice Cream Parlor / Woman Having Picture Taken |
1916 | The Social Secretary | Spinster (uncredited) |
1916 | A Model Husband | Mrs Gossip |
1915 | The Arrival of Perpetua | Abigail Majendrie |
Year | TV Show | Role |
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