- Date of Birth: 02 January, 1913
- Place of Birth: Igtham, Kent, England
Biography
1998 - Soap Opera Digest Awards for Outstanding Actress in a Supporting Role in "General Hospital" Anna Lee, MBE , born Joan Boniface Winnifrith, was an English actress.
Lee studied at the Royal Albert Hall, then debuted in 1932 with a bit part in the film His Lordship. When she and her first husband, director Robert Stevenson, moved to Hollywood she became associated with John Ford, appearing in several of his movies, notably How Green Was My Valley, Two Rode Together and Fort Apache. She was also a member of the Val Lewton stock company, appearing in his classic 1946 film Bedlam. Lee made frequent appearances on television anthology series in the 1940s and 1950s, including Robert Montgomery Presents, The Ford Theatre Hour, Kraft Television Theatre, Armstrong Circle Theatre and Wagon Train. She had a small, but memorable, role as Sister Margaretta in The Sound of Music. Sister Margaretta was a supporter of Maria in the abbey and was one of the two nuns who thwarted the Nazis by removing car engine parts, allowing the Von Trapps to escape. In 1994, she took the leading role of the feature film What Can I Do?, directed by Wheeler Winston Dixon. In later years, she became known to a new generation as the matriarch "Lila Quartermaine" on General Hospital and Port Charles until her sacking in 2003, which was widely protested in the soap world and among General Hospital actors. According to fellow GH actress Leslie Charleson, Lee was promised a job for life by former GH executive producer Wendy Riche; when Riche left the show, the new management fired Lee. Charleson said in 2007, "They screwed Anna Lee... The woman was in her 80s. And then when the new powers-that-be took over they fired her, and it broke her heart. It was not necessary." One of her sons attested that the firing sapped Lee's will to live. She died not long afterwards of pneumonia. Lee was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Anna Lee was born in Ightham, Kent, England, the daughter of a clergyman who encouraged her desire to act. She has a daughter, actress Venetia Stevenson, who was married to Don Everly of the Everly Brothers and who has three children, Stacy Everly, Erin Everly, and Edan Everly. Lee's son Jeffrey Byron is also an actor; his real name is Tim Stafford. His father, George Stafford, was Anna Lee's second husband. Her marriage was to novelist Robert Nathan (The Bishop's Wife, Portrait of Jennie), to whom she was married until his death in 1985. She was the goddaughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and lifelong friend of his daughter, Dame Jean Conan Doyle. Her brother Sir John Winnifrith was a senior British civil servant who became permanent secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture. In the 1930s, Lee occupied a house at 49 Bankside in London; she was later interviewed by writer Gillian Tindall for a book written about the address, The House by the Thames, released in 2006. Since first built in 1710, the house had served as a home for coal merchants, an office, a boarding-house, a hangout for derelicts and finally once again a private residence in the 1900s. The house is listed in tour guides as a famous residence and has been variously claimed as possibly being home to Christopher Wren during the construction of St. Paul's Cathedral, and previously claimed residents included Catherine of Aragon and William Shakespeare.
Lee studied at the Royal Albert Hall, then debuted in 1932 with a bit part in the film His Lordship. When she and her first husband, director Robert Stevenson, moved to Hollywood she became associated with John Ford, appearing in several of his movies, notably How Green Was My Valley, Two Rode Together and Fort Apache. She was also a member of the Val Lewton stock company, appearing in his classic 1946 film Bedlam. Lee made frequent appearances on television anthology series in the 1940s and 1950s, including Robert Montgomery Presents, The Ford Theatre Hour, Kraft Television Theatre, Armstrong Circle Theatre and Wagon Train. She had a small, but memorable, role as Sister Margaretta in The Sound of Music. Sister Margaretta was a supporter of Maria in the abbey and was one of the two nuns who thwarted the Nazis by removing car engine parts, allowing the Von Trapps to escape. In 1994, she took the leading role of the feature film What Can I Do?, directed by Wheeler Winston Dixon. In later years, she became known to a new generation as the matriarch "Lila Quartermaine" on General Hospital and Port Charles until her sacking in 2003, which was widely protested in the soap world and among General Hospital actors. According to fellow GH actress Leslie Charleson, Lee was promised a job for life by former GH executive producer Wendy Riche; when Riche left the show, the new management fired Lee. Charleson said in 2007, "They screwed Anna Lee... The woman was in her 80s. And then when the new powers-that-be took over they fired her, and it broke her heart. It was not necessary." One of her sons attested that the firing sapped Lee's will to live. She died not long afterwards of pneumonia. Lee was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Anna Lee was born in Ightham, Kent, England, the daughter of a clergyman who encouraged her desire to act. She has a daughter, actress Venetia Stevenson, who was married to Don Everly of the Everly Brothers and who has three children, Stacy Everly, Erin Everly, and Edan Everly. Lee's son Jeffrey Byron is also an actor; his real name is Tim Stafford. His father, George Stafford, was Anna Lee's second husband. Her marriage was to novelist Robert Nathan (The Bishop's Wife, Portrait of Jennie), to whom she was married until his death in 1985. She was the goddaughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and lifelong friend of his daughter, Dame Jean Conan Doyle. Her brother Sir John Winnifrith was a senior British civil servant who became permanent secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture. In the 1930s, Lee occupied a house at 49 Bankside in London; she was later interviewed by writer Gillian Tindall for a book written about the address, The House by the Thames, released in 2006. Since first built in 1710, the house had served as a home for coal merchants, an office, a boarding-house, a hangout for derelicts and finally once again a private residence in the 1900s. The house is listed in tour guides as a famous residence and has been variously claimed as possibly being home to Christopher Wren during the construction of St. Paul's Cathedral, and previously claimed residents included Catherine of Aragon and William Shakespeare.