Katharine Cornell

Katharine Cornell
Born	February 16, 1893 Berlin, German Empire
Died	June 9, 1974 (aged 81) Tisbury, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Stage actress, writer, producer
Spouse(s)	Guthrie McClintic (1921–1961; his death)

Katharine Cornell (February 16, 1893 – June 9, 1974) was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born in Berlin to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.

Cornell was the first actress to win a Drama League Award and garnered the nickname of "First Lady of the Theatre", a title also bestowed upon her friend Helen Hayes, though each deferred the honor to the other. Cornell is noted for her major Broadway roles in serious dramas, often directed by her husband, Guthrie McClintic. The couple formed a production company, which gave them complete artistic freedom in choosing and producing plays. Their production company gave first or prominent Broadway roles to some of the more notable actors of the 20th century, including many British Shakespearean actors. Cornell was noted for spurning screen roles, unlike other actresses of her day, appearing in only one Hollywood film, Stage Door Canteen (1943), in which she played herself. Cornell is regarded as one of 20th century Broadway's greatest leading ladies.

Cornell's most famous role was as English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the 1931 Broadway production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Other appearances on Broadway included: W. Somerset Maugham's The Letter (1927), Sidney Howard's The Alien Corn (1933), Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1934), Maxwell Anderson's The Wingless Victory (1936), S. N. Behrman's No Time for Comedy (1939), a Tony Award-winning Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1947), and a revival of Maugham's The Constant Wife (1951).

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