Margaret Wycherly

She spent many years in the United States and is best remembered for her Broadway roles and Hollywood character parts. On screen she played mother to Gary Cooper (Sergeant York) and James Cagney (White Heat).

Margaret De Wolfe Wycherly
Born	Margaret De Wolfe (1881-10-26)26 October 1881 London, England, U.K.
Died	6 June 1956(1956-06-06) (aged 74) St. Clare's Hospital, New York City, New York, U.S.
Resting place	St Mary Churchyard, Bepton, England
Other names	Lovett De Wolfe
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1905–1955
Spouse	Bayard Veiller ​ ​ (m. 1901; div. 1922)​
Children	Anthony Veiller

Wycherly was born in London, England of her Canadian father and American mother, Dr. and Mrs. J. L. De Wolfe. She was married to writer Bayard Veiller (1869–1943) in 1901. They had a son, Anthony Veiller (1903–1965), who also became a writer. She and Veiller divorced in 1922.

 

She was primarily a stage actress, appearing in one silent film. In 1929, she appeared in her second film, but first talkie, The Thirteenth Chair, based on the 1916 play by her husband in which she had starred. The film was directed by Tod Browning and was in the genre of mystery-old house melodrama. Twelve years later, Wycherley appeared in Sergeant York in 1941. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role of Mother York, though perhaps her best remembered screen role was as Ma Jarrett, the mother of the psychopathic gangster Cody Jarrett, in White Heat (1949), which starred James Cagney.

Wycherly starred in several popular Broadway plays, including Tobacco Road, Liliom, Six Characters in Search of an Author and The Thirteenth Chair (which role she reprised in the 1929 film of the same name). Her other films include Keeper of the Flame, The Yearling, Random Harvest, Forever Amber, The Man with a Cloak and Johnny Angel starring George Raft.

She portrayed Mrs. Brown, Claudia's mother, in the American television series Claudia (1952).

Wycherly died on 6 June 1956 at St. Clare's Hospital in New York City, at the age of 74. She was buried at the St Mary Churchyard, Bepton, Chichester District, West Sussex, England.^{[citation needed]}

• The Fight (1915) – Jane Thomas
• The Thirteenth Chair (1929) – Madame Rosalie La Grange
• Midnight (1934) – Mrs. Weldon
• Wanderlust (1938, Short)
• Victory (1940) – Mrs. Schomberg
• Sergeant York (1941) – Mother York
• Crossroads (1942) – Madame Pelletier
• Random Harvest (1942) – Mrs. Deventer
• Keeper of the Flame (1943) – Mrs. Forrest
• Assignment in Brittany (1943) – Mme. Henriette Corlay
• The Moon Is Down (1943) – Mme. Sarah Orden
• Hangmen Also Die! (1943) – Ludmilla Novotny
• Experiment Perilous (1944) – Maggie
• Johnny Angel (1945) – Miss Drumm
• The Yearling (1946) – Ma Forrester
• Something in the Wind (1947) – Grandma Read
• Forever Amber (1947) – Mrs. Spong
• The Loves of Carmen (1948) – Old Crone
• White Heat (1949) – Ma Jarrett
• The Man with a Cloak (1951) – Emma Flynn
• That Man from Tangier (1953) – Mrs. Sanders
• The President's Lady (1953) – Mrs. Robards