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Anne Seymour

Anne Seymour brought a long theatrical inheritance to a career that moved easily between stage, radio, film and television. Born Anne Seymour Eckert in Manhattan on September 11, 1909, she was the seventh generation of a theatrical family whose roots could be traced to 18th-century Ireland. Her mother, May Davenport Seymour Eckert, was an actress, while her great-uncle was character actor Harry Davenport. After attending St. Mary’s and studying at the American Laboratory Theatre, Seymour began professional work with the Jitney Players, earning $15 a week. Her Broadway appearances included At the Bottom and Puppet Show in 1930, The School for Scandal in 1931 and, nearly three decades later, Sunrise at Campobello, in which she played Mrs. Sara Delano Roosevelt. Radio became another substantial part of her career. Seymour made her radio debut in Cincinnati in 1932, and during the early 1940s she took leading roles in the NBC serials A Woman of America and The Story of Mary Marlin. She, her mother and her brother Bill Seymour were all active in radio at the same time. On screen, Seymour developed the kind of wide-ranging character career that could accommodate drama, westerns, soap operas and comedy. An early film appearance came as Mrs. Lucy Stark in All the King’s Men in 1949. She later played Amelia Tarbell in Pollyanna and Grandma Beebe in Misty, the 1961 adaptation of Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague. Her television work stretched across several decades. She appeared in series including Peter Gunn, My Three Sons, Perry Mason, Bewitched, Bonanza, Gunsmoke and Emergency!, while also holding regular roles in Empire and The Tim Conway Show. In 1985, she appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Presents as Esther in “Final Escape.” Her final performance was as Veda Ponikvar in Field of Dreams, released in 1989 after her death—a fittingly late reminder of a performer whose career had touched nearly every major acting medium of her era.