Underrated Performer of the Week: Una O'Connor

Una O’Connor was born Agnes Teresa McGlade in Belfast, Ireland, in 1880. She took her stage name when she joined Dublin’s prestigious Abbey Players. By the 1930s, she was appearing in West End stage productions and had small roles in films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Murder (1930).

She didn’t attract much attention until she appeared in the Academy Award-winning adaptation of Noel Coward’s play Cavalcade (1933). She and Herbert Mundin played the Bridges, servants to the upper-class Marryot family—a concept not dissimilar to the later acclaimed television drama Upstairs, Downstairs. That performance provided O’Connor with a ticket to Hollywood, where her patented hysterics kept her in demand for almost three decades.

She was a favorite of both James Whale and John Ford. For Whale, she made memorable supporting appearances in The Invisible Man (1933) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). She played more serious characters for Ford in 1935’s The Informer (as Wallace Ford's mother) and The Plough and the Stars (1936).

O’Connor seems to have made a movie with almost every big Hollywood star at one time or other. She was in three Errol Flynn films: The Adventures of Robin Hood (a delightful turn as Marian’s maid-in-waiting), The Sea Hawk, and The Adventures of Don Juan. She also appeared in films with Ronald Colman (Random Harvest), Barbara Stanwyck (Christmas in Connecticut), Bob Hope (My Favorite Spy), Bing Crosby (The Bells of St. Mary’s), Norma Shearer and Fredric March (The Barretts of Wimpole Street), and Jennifer Jones (Cluny Brown).

Her most frequent co-star was Charles Laughton. They worked together in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, This Land is Mine, The Canterville Ghost, Forever and a Day, and Witness for the Prosecution. Indeed, Witness for the Prosecution provided O’Connor with her most famous role, as the hard-of-hearing housekeeper Janet McKenzie. She played the part for two years on Broadway and reprised it for Billy Wilder’s film version. It was her final performance.

Una O’Connor died of heart disease in 1959. She never married.