Florence Eldridge

Brooklyn-born Florence Eldridge was a popular Broadway ingenue from age 17 onward. Among her stage credits of the 1920s were the original productions of Six Cylinder Love (she repeated her role for the 1923 film version) and The Cat and the Canary. Eldridge matured into a brilliant dramatic actress in the 1930s, winning several awards in the process, including the New York Drama Critics prize for her performance in the 1956 Pulitzer Prize winner Long Day's Journey Into Night. From 1935 onward, Eldridge's film appearances were few in number; when she did appear before the cameras, it was always in the company of her husband, Fredric March. Eldridge's last theatrical film was Inherit the Wind (1960), in which she played the loyal wife of lawyer Matthew Harrison Brady--portrayed, of course, by Fredric March. Three years after her husband's death, Florence Eldridge appeared in her only made-for-TV movie, 1978's First, You Cry.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide