Elisabeth Risdon
actress, soundtrack
- Birth name:
- Daisy Cartwright Risdon
- Born:
- 1888-04-26, London, England, UK
- Died:
- 1958-12-20, Santa Monica, California, USA
- Professions:
- actress, soundtrack
Biography
London welcomed Elisabeth Risdon on 26 April 1888, and from that first breath she seemed destined to command the spotlight. Over five glittering decades she slipped into hundreds of roles, but moviegoers remember her best as the steadfast Mary Todd Lincoln in *Abe Lincoln in Illinois* (1940), the world-weary farm woman who shelters Bogart in *High Sierra* (1941), and the dizzy Aunt Della in *Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost* (1942). Off-screen she shared her life with two husbands—actor-director George Loane Tucker and, later, fellow performer Brandon Evans. Her final curtain fell on 20 December 1958 in Santa Monica, California, yet the flicker of her presence still dances across the screen.
