Zeffie Tilbury
Birth : 1863-11-20, Paddington, London, England, UK
Death : 1950-07-24
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zeffie Agnes Lydia Tilbury (November 20, 1863 – July 24, 1950) was an English actress.
Tilbury was known first on the London stage and on Broadway in New York City. In 1881, she debuted on stage in Nine Points of the Law at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, England.
She is today best known for playing wise or evil older characters in films, such as the distinguished lady gambler at dinner with Garbo in The Single Standard, as the pitiful Grandma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath and Grandma Lester in Tobacco Road.
She appeared in over 70 films. Her earliest surviving silent film is the Valentino / Nazimova 1921 production of Camille. Tilbury is probably best remembered as the old lady who is befriended by Spanky and his friends on her birthday and, as a result, is transformed from a lonely, disagreeable recluse to a happy and loving carefree soul in the 1936 Hal Roach Our Gang comedy Second Childhood. In the same year she also portrayed the Gypsy Queen in the Laurel and Hardy film The Bohemian Girl.
Tilbury was married twice. First to Arthur Frederick Lewis in June, 1887, and later to L. E. Woodthorpe, who died on April 8, 1915. She died in Los Angeles, California in 1950 at the age of 86.
Granny Carson
The mayor has sent for a gunslinger who, though appearing to clean up the town, is really to be the mayor's means of taking the town over. When Roy and Gabby arrive in Tombstone, Roy is mistaken for the gunslinger. Just as Roy is ready to expose the mayor, the real gunslinger shows up.
Grandma Lester
Shiftless Jeeter Lester and his family of sharecroppers live in rural Georgia where their ancestors were once wealthy planters. Their slapstick existence is threatened by a bank's plans to take over the land for more profitable farming.
Ma Hawkins
Two big city lawyers are handed an important case but then find it requires them to deal with the oddball and very shrewd characters in a small town.
Grandma Joad
Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.
Mrs. Cobb
Betty Bryant is an ambitious newspaper reporter in love with Dan Barton, a member of a big-city Emergency Squad who are trained to deal with riots, cave-in, explosions, fires and other emergencies where lives are at stake. Slade Wiley, an unscrupulous tunnel builder, finds that his low bid on the Newford Tunnel project is causing him to lose a lot of money, and has underworld leader Nick Burton set off blasts to frighten the stockholders into selling their shares at a low price so he can buy up the stock. Betty is investigating the deal when Wiley and Burton take her on a "tour trip" to the tunnel.
Miss Nana (uncredited)
A behind the times Chicago bootlegger goes to England with his lawyer to claim his estate as the Earl of Gorley.
Natalya Petrovna
A Russian prince disguised as a worker and a cafe singer secretly involved in revolutionary activities fall in love.
Woman Congratulating Manon
Playboy Bill Carey woos a half-caste beauty in French Indochina, but her second-class legal status makes a formidable barrier.
Miss Mary
A newspaper editor turns a kidnapping into the banner headlines and exclusive story that could save his publication.
Mrs. Sanders
Alexander Graham Bell falls in love with deaf girl Mabel Hubbard while teaching the deaf and trying to invent means for telegraphing the human voice. She urges him to put off thoughts of marriage until his experiments are complete. He invents the telephone, marries and becomes rich and famous, though his happiness is threatened when a rival company sets out to ruin him.
Mrs. Jepson
A fussy shopkeeper's life drastically changes when his wife takes in two homeless boys.
Aunt Meg
The invention of a machine that can cause remote explosions brings the attention of Scotland Yard and Bulldog Drummond.
Dowager at Birth of Dauphin (uncredited)
The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
Grandma
A newlywed unhappily discovers that her husband's scheming ex-wife still has a controlling influence in his life and home.
Old Woman
Robert Louis Stevenson's hero David Balfour joins rebel Alan Breck Stewart in 18th-century Scotland.
Mrs. Weevens
Drummond's wedding with Phyllis is interrupted when the inspector guarding their gifts is killed. He tries to trace the killers and uncovers the mystery of diamond counterfeiters.
Mrs. Crippen
Federal Bullets is a leisurely paced Monogram crime melodrama with not a few clever plot twists. The FBI, represented by Milburn Stone and William Harrigan, investigates a seemingly respectable charitable organization. In fact, the enterprise is a front for a crime ring, headed by Ma Barker clone Zeffie Tilbury (Trivia note: Ms. Tilbury was totally blind, and had to learn her "blocking" by rote).
Dying Duchess Marie (uncredited)
This short explores the possibility that Louis XVII, son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, escaped death during the French Revolution and was raised by Indians in America.
Zeffie
Drummond's girlfriend is kidnapped by his enemies and he along with his friend Nielsen, an inspector from Scotland Yard, follow the trail and try to rescue her from the kidnappers.
Miss Gordon
A silent Western star has trouble adjusting to the coming of sound.
Mrs. Beamish
A poor family receives unwanted houseguests when they're visited by gangsters looking for a place to hide out.
The Duchess de Lovely
Judy Walker is a poor songwriter who, through mistaken identity, gets her songs played on the radio.
Mrs. Lane
A federal agent goes to work for a taxi company believing it to be a front for a gang of counterfeiters.
Goody Hodgers
When a young woman named Barbara Clarke has an affair with adventurer Roger Coverman, it causes a scandal in the Puritanical town of Salem, Massachusetts. After a meddling girl arouses their suspicions, the town's elders accuse Barbara of being a witch. She is tried, convicted of sorcery and sentenced to death. As the townspeople prepare to burn Barbara at the stake, Roger tries desperately to save the woman he loves.
Drunk in Jail Cell
Drummond manages to save a woman from jumping in front of his car but she runs away with his car. He traces her and she asks him to help her out of a dangerous situation.
Mrs. Nash
A detective (Edmund Lowe) trails a professor (Henry Daniell) who stole credit for his wife's research, then killed her.
Aunt Lucy (uncredited)
Nick and Nora Charles investigate when Nora's cousin reports her disreputable husband is missing, and find themselves in a mystery involving the shady owners of a popular nightclub, a singer and her dark brother, the cousin's forsaken true love, and Nora's bombastic and controlling aunt.
Grandma
Tom and Harry are sailors on a yacht, and go ashore for a few beers and whatever else may come up. What comes up is a brawl between them and the barflies in the waterfront saloon they go to. They are aided by an elderly lady and her knitting needles.
Esther Warren
An American lawyer's wife is reunited with her child and his father, an English nobleman.
Mrs. Daniel Beall
It's the early nineteenth century Washington. Young adult Margaret O'Neal, Peggy to most that know her, is the daughter of Major William O'Neal, who is the innkeeper of the establishment where most out-of-town politicians and military men stay when they're in Washington. Peggy is pretty and politically aware. She is courted by several of those politicians and military men who all want to marry her, except for the one with who she is truly in love.
Woman Donating Sheets (uncredited)
In mid-nineteenth century England the medical establishment does not recognize the value of skilled nurses, cleanliness, nutrition and kindness. Florence Nightingale's heroic measures slowly changes all of this.
Aunt Olga
Madeleine steals a string of pearls in Paris and uses US engineer Tom, who is driving on his vacation to Spain, to get the pearls out of France. But getting the pearls back from him proves to be difficult without falling in love.
Woman
Charley's somewhat prudish wife pretends to be a party girl.
The Wise Woman
In this action-filled spectacle set in ancient Pompeii, a blacksmith becomes a Roman gladiator, though his rise to wealth and power is jeopardized by his son's Christianity and the eruption of Vesuvius.
Bridge Player
A Hawaiian naval nurse weds a widowed officer partly because he has a crippled daughter.
Mrs. Dresser (uncredited)
In the lower-middle-class Adams family, father and son are happy to work in a drugstore, but mother and daughter Alice try every possible social-climbing stratagem despite snubs and embarrassment. When Alice finally meets her dream man Arthur, mother nags father into a risky business venture and plans to impress Alice's beau with an "upscale" family dinner. Will the excruciating results drive Arthur away?
Old Hag (uncredited)
A Traveler's Aid worker who delights in solving people's problems gets mixed up with gangsters.
Deaf Woman in Scottsdale Bar (uncredited)
G-Man Jeff Crane poses as a crook to infiltrate the notorious Purple Gang, a band of hoodlums which preys upon other hoodlums. Orchestrating the jailbreak of the gang's leader, Crane joins him in a Dillinger-like flight across the country.
Mrs. Moncaster
A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.
The Opium Woman
A choirmaster addicted to opium and obsessed with a beautiful young woman will stop at nothing to possess her.
Peg Martin
A divorced woman finds success as a fashion designer.
Miss Turner (uncredited)
After being fired from his job at the Marriage License Bureau, a clerk turns to matchmaking.
Granny Plimpton
Police try to solve a murder on board an ocean liner.
Rogers' Neighbor (uncredited)
Mazie, a poor orphan girl, is mistreated by cruel farmer Slag and his wife for whom she works. Mazie, who is growing into a woman, does not like they way Slag has been looking at her lately.
Mrs. Luce
Charlie steps in to solve the murder of a wealthy American found dead in a London hotel. Settings include London, Nice, San Remo, Honolulu and Hong Kong. Fast-paced with lots of wisecracking. The first film to star Warner Oland as Charlie Chan.
Lady Daley
On a yacht sailing from Shanghai to the United States, the sailors, led by the megalomaniac steward, revolt and take control.
Mrs. Handley
A bored socialite finds fleeting romance with an artist.
Prudence
Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hope of a career and position by marrying Armand, she acquiesces and leaves her lover. However, when poverty and terminal illness overwhelm her, Camille discovers that Armand has not lost his love for her.
Mrs. De La Motte
Young Austrian girl Marie Helmar, is left penniless by the death of her father and disgraced by Prussian officer Captain Von Pfaffen, she flees to the safety of her French cousins, the De La Mottes. There she falls in love with their eldest son Gerome. On the night before their wedding, Marie sends a letter to Gerome confessing her indiscretion with the Prussian, but the letter is returned unopened. Soon after, she recognizes a new household servant to be Von Pfaffen, who demands that Marie disclose war secrets in return for his silence about her past. Torn, she passes on false information, which disgraces the Prussian. In revenge, he attempts to kill Marie, but she shoots him in self-defense. Shaken by remorse, Marie presents Gerome with her confession, which, he then reveals, he had read the night of their wedding. Their life thus unclouded, Marie announces she is expecting Gerome's child.
Mrs. Stanley Shelby
Nora Shard, a young American girl living in England, is ostracized from society for her presumed part in a scandal which culminated in a murder-suicide by a nobleman and his wife. Nora disguises her identity and goes to Italy, where she finds happiness - until the spectre of the past is raised.
Mrs. Ruyler
A woman with a gambling addiction finds that her daughter is threatened by the same tendencies.
