Careworn-looking American character actress prominently on the 1950s
stage who made an auspicious film debut in mid-career as
Tippi Hedren's
neurotic, secretive mother in
Alfred Hitchcock's
Marnie (1964). She went on to appear
in hundreds of showy, dressed-down film and TV roles often playing
small-town wife, drab landlady or opinionated townsperson.