Violet Kemble-Cooper | |
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Violet Kemble-Cooper in Cardinal Richelieu (1935)
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Born |
Violet Kemble-Cooper 12 December 1886 London, England |
Died | 17 August 1961 Hollywood, California, USA |
(aged 74)
Other names | Violet Kemble Cooper |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1905–36 |
Spouse(s) | Walter Ferris |
Violet Kemble-Cooper (12 December 1886 -– 17 August 1961) was a British stage and film actress.
Born in London, she was a descendant from a well-known theatrical family, the Kemble family. Her father was actor Frank Kemble-Cooper (1857-1918). Her sisters Lillian Kemble-Cooper and Greta Kemble Cooper, and her brother Anthony Kemble Cooper were actors as well. An uncle was revered thespian H. Cooper Cliffe.
She made her first stage appearance in 1905 in her native England in a production of Charley's Aunt. By 1912 she was in America, touring and in stock plays with such luminaries as Blanche Bates and Laurette Taylor. She appeared with John and Ethel Barrymore in Claire de Lune on Broadway in 1921.
Violet spent her formative years acting in the theater and never appeared in silent films. She appeared in talkies beginning with the Constance Bennett film Our Betters (1933). She appeared in several more films, including the evil spinster Miss Murdstone in the Dickens film adaption David Copperfield (1935) and Boris Karloff's mother in the horror film The Invisible Ray (1936). Kemble-Coopers last movie was the MGM costumer Romeo and Juliet (1936), where she portrayed Lady Capulet.
She was married to Walter Ferris, a writer. She died of a stroke and Parkinson's disease in 1961.