Zeffie Tilbury

After many, many years on-stage, American actress Zeffie Tilbury made her film bow in 1919. Almost from the beginning of her movie career, Tilbury was typecast as grandmotherly types, be they lovable, spiteful, or diabolical. At her peak in the 1930s and early '40s, she was seen as the Gypsy Queen in Laurel and Hardy's Bohemian Girl (1936); the elegant, larcenous Aunt Olga in the Lubitsch-produced Desire (1936); Gramma Joad in John Ford's Grapes of Wrath (1940); and Ma Lester in another Ford production, Tobacco Road (1941). Fans of the Little Rascals will remember Tilbury as the snappish hypochondriac who is regenerated by the presence of Spanky, Alfalfa, and the rest in the 1936 two-reeler Second Childhood. During her 1930s heyday, Zeffie Tilbury was almost totally blind, a fact she successfully kept secret from the public so as not to generate curiosity or pity.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide