Sara Haden

Sara Haden, born Catherine Haden on November 17, 1898, in Center Point, Texas, was the daughter of silent screen star Charlotte Walker, a celebrated beauty in her day. Despite not inheriting her mother's good looks, Sara's childhood was unremarkable, except that her mother did not initially encourage her to pursue an acting career. She received her education at the Dominican Convent in Galveston and began acting in repertory with the James Hayden Players in Galveston and Dallas. Sara's early career included working in radio, where she reportedly impersonated dogs for her own stories, and debuted on Broadway in 1921 as Macduff's son in "Macbeth". For the next eight years, she alternated between comedy and melodrama, scoring leads in plays such as "Trigger", "Lawful Larceny", "The Wrecker", and "Hot Water". Sara began her screen career in 1934, reprising her role as Etta Dawson in "Spitfire", and went on to typecast herself as austere spinsters, eccentric aunts, and crotchety dowagers due to her schoolmarmish looks. Despite this, she had a knack for playing nasty characters, especially towards children, and beneath her villainous screen reputation lay a great sense of humor. Sara was once quoted as saying, "I'm always mean, but there is no monotony about my meanness. I am mean in a great variety of fashions," and "I am glad my dog doesn't go to the movies. Maybe he wouldn't think as much of me if he did." As an MGM contract player from 1938 to 1946, Sara became best known for her role as Aunt Milly Forrest in the popular Andy Hardy series. She also had memorable scenes in Universal's "She-Wolf of London" (1946),where she was paid $2167 per week and had a turn reminiscent of the Miss Danvers character from Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940). Sara remained a sought-after television actress until her retirement from acting in 1965 and passed away as Catherine Haden Vandenburg in Woodland Hills, California, in September 1981 at the age of 82.