Underrated Performers of the Week: Patricia Collinge and Edna May Wonacott

(Pictured: Edna May Wonacott - seated in front; standing, left to right - Patricia Collinge, Charles Bates, Joseph Cotten and Henry Travers in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt)

This week our spotlight on supporting players takes a look at two standout members of the superb cast of Alfred Hitchcock's 1943 masterwork, Shadow of a Doubt: Patricia Collinge, a veteran stage actress in her second film outing, and Edna May Wonacott, a fledgling actress in her first role.

Patricia Collinge was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1892 and went on the London stage at the age of 18. In 1907, she and her mother emigrated to the U.S. where Collinge found steady work in American theater for the next 45 years.

Collinge originated the role of Birdie Hubbard in the 1939 Broadway production of Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes." She was again cast in the part when the play was adapted to film in 1941. It was her film debut and she garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Collinge's next film was equally auspicious - she was cast in Alfred Hitchcock's great classic, Shadow of a Doubt (several sources concur that she was also involved with script re-writes on the film). She made only seven films in her career and is primarily remembered for those first two. Both characters, Birdie in The Little Foxes and Emma Newton in Shadow of a Doubt, shared a certain tremulous, high-strung quality, but the two existed in very different milieus. Birdie, sensitive and tentative, was crushed by the avaricious and carnivorous Hubbard family; Emma is affectionately respected by the gentler Newton clan and is secure in her position at home and in the community. Collinge depicts both characters in fine detail.

Patricia Collinge's last film was The Nun's Story (1959) with Audrey Hepburn. She appeared on various TV drama anthology programs of the 1950s and in series TV of the 1960s. She passed away in New York City in 1974 at the age of 81.

Edna May Wonacott was born in Willits, California, in 1932. The daughter of a local area grocer, she was discovered by Alfred Hitchcock, who had set Shadow of a Doubt in bucolic Santa Rosa, California, and was using the town's citizens as extras in the film. He selected 9-year-old Edna May to portray Ann, younger sister of the protagonist, Charlie Newton, and daughter of Emma Newton (Collinge). Observant Ann was the one member of the family to be skeptical of charming Uncle Charlie from the beginning.

Following the success of Shadow of a Doubt, Wonacott and family moved to Southern California where she pursued an acting career for a time. She had small roles in only six more films, including the Leo McCarey classic, The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), and appeared on television, but left her career in the early 1950s to marry and raise a family.

Though Edna May Wonacott's career was brief, her striking performance as the smart, self-possessed bookworm, Ann Newton, earned her a place in the hearts of Hitchcock aficiondados and classic film buffs everywhere. She brought an appealing piquancy to each of her scenes and hardly seemed a novice onscreen with the likes of Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Henry Travers, Hume Cronyn, Wallace Ford, Macdonald Carey and Collinge.

Wonacott, now a great-grandmother, lives in Arizona.

Patricia Collinge
The Little Foxes (1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Tender Comrade (1943), Casanova Brown (1944), Teresa (1951), Washington Story (1952),The Nun's Story (1959)

Edna May Wonacott

Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Hi, Beautiful (1944), Under Western Skies (1945), This Love is Ours (1945), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), Sunny Side of the Street (1951), The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951)