Happy Birthday, Edna May!

Author's Note: The Yuma Daily Sun published this 2-part interview as a feature article in its Sunday, March 14, issue. Since then, various local community groups have approached Edna about speaking engagements. When "Happy Birthday, Edna May!" was posted at the Cafe in February, Edna began receiving requests for pictures and autographs from around the U.S., Canada and even Europe. The interview was reprinted in "Films of the Golden Age," Winter 2010/2011.
Part 2
Edna Green (formerly Edna May Wonacott) celebrated her 78th birthday on February 6. In her honor, we posted the first part of my recent interview with her on that day. Part 1 can be viewed by scrolling down the page.

Filming on Shadow of a Doubt began in August 1942 and took three months to complete. While in Hollywood during the school year, Edna May was tutored on the set on the days that she worked. On off-days, she attended classes at the studio's schoolhouse. She particularly remembers one fellow student, Sabu, who captivated the class with stories about the elephants of India. His stories gave Edna May the impression that in India elephants were as common as dogs in the U.S., and treated in much the same way.

Edna May became close to Pat Hitchcock, the director's daughter, and the two often played gin rummy on the set. Both girls had crushes on Joseph Cotten, and when he gave Edna May an autographed picture inscribed "with love," Edna remembers that Pat was a little disconcerted because Cotten hadn't signed his picture to her with the same sentiment.

The Hitchcocks often took Edna May to Hollywood's famous Brown Derby restaurant, and she spent many weekends as Pat's guest at the Hitchcock home. On most days, their meals would be ordered from the kitchen and sent up to Pat's room via a "dumb-waiter" built into the wall. One day, though, Pat told her there would be a formal dinner that evening and to "wear something nice." Edna May was flustered, not being familiar with the forks, spoons, knives, dishes and glasses used at formal dinners. She hoped to sit next to Pat and follow her lead. But Pat told her they'd be sitting across the table from each other and, when it came to the silverware, "just start from the outside and work your way in." It turned out that the evening's guests were Joseph Cotten, his wife and step-daughter - and Edna was seated next to him. She remembers being so smitten that she was trembling. And she'll never forget that he talked with her all through dinner.
Like so many kids of that era, Edna May had an autograph book. When it was Alfred Hitchcock's turn to sign, he did it as one might expect - with a twist. He signed the last page in the book and with his left hand (he was right-handed): "By hook or by crook, I'll be the last one to sign in this book."
At the end of the shoot, there was a goodbye party in San Francisco. Edna May received many gifts that she still cherishes, including an inscribed bracelet from Teresa Wright, a scarf with a "pigtail" motif from Joseph Cotten and a golden bow from Hitchcock inscribed "to Ann Newton from Alfred Hitchcock." Edna reports that Hitchcock never called her anything but Ann throughout the making of Shadow of a Doubt.
Edna May, of course, was a local celebrity in Santa Rosa (population 19,000 at the time). She recalls: "There was a lot of publicity and women would come into dad's store and want to touch the father of a movie star! I have lots of scrapbooks of the publicity and had quite a write-up in Life magazine and was in movie magazines. Little girls with pigtails and glasses suddenly started showing up on the street corners in town!"

When Shadow of a Doubt was released, it premiered in Santa Rosa and Pat Hitchcock came up from Hollywood and attended with Edna May. There was quite a hubbub in town over the film and its release signaled a war bond drive, with Edna May kicking it off at the courthouse in Santa Rosa. She also took a trip to sell war bonds in Salinas when the movie opened there.
Because she had recently signed a five-year contract with producer Jack Skirball, Edna May and her parents moved to Glendale following the release of Shadow of a Doubt. Her older brother, then in college, stayed in Santa Rosa and ran the family store until he went into the military and served in World War II.
Her first assignment for Skirball was to be It's in the Bag with Fred Allen, and Edna May was to have equal billing. But Allen balked at this and refused to work with her. Ultimately, her contract was broken, but when the film was eventually made without her, Edna May was paid in full.
At this point, she signed with an agent who exclusively handled child actors.
Edna May had small roles in several more films, and she has warm memories of working on Leo McCarey's The Bells of Saint Mary's (1945), a film nominated for eight Oscars and winner of one. She played Delphine, one of the girls about to graduate from St. Mary's, the one who smacks a baseball through a window in Mr. Bogardus' (Henry Travers) new building. Edna recalls that, like Shadow of a Doubt, the atmosphere on the set was "just like family." Ingrid Bergman was "a real sweetheart who said hello to everyone from the janitor on up when she came on the set." Edna also remembers that a member of the crew would play a little tune on an ocarina whenever Miss Bergman arrived. She adds, "We had a lot of fun with Bing Crosby - since there was a schoolyard set, he was always playing basketball with the kids."
Edna left acting at the beginning of the 1950s when she married.
Today, Edna Green feels fortunate to have been in Hollywood during the Golden Age.
"I have nothing but good memories of working in Hollywood. It was a different era than it is now and, being as young as I was, I didn't feel like an actress...I was just a kid who did what she was told to do."
Along with her memories, Edna has a treasure-trove of memorabilia from Shadow of a Doubt. From her scrapbooks, the issue of Life magazine and the prized goodbye gifts, to her original script with its cover signed by Hitchcock and the entire cast.
Edna is honored to have been a part of such an iconic film, one of Hitchcock's most celebrated, but is amazed that people are still interested in her. She remarked that some friends recently watched Shadow of a Doubt after Edna told them she was in it. They were quick to tell her: "You are just exactly like you were in that movie."
And I'll admit that at times during our conversation I could hear a little bit of Ann Newton as I talked with Edna Green.
Looking back, Edna considers that her entire life - her early days in Santa Rosa, the years in Hollywood, her 57-year marriage, raising three boys - has been filled with good times. Though she's lost her beloved dad (at age 90) and mom (at age 102) and, more recently, her brother and husband, Edna has her sons, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, her friends and many wonderful memories of a good life and a very special childhood.

 
While doing research for a blog on Shadow of a Doubt, I located and contacted Edna Green. She kindly agreed to talk with me about her experiences on that film and her years in Hollywood. My sincere thanks to Edna for sharing her memories with us.

Happy Birthday, Edna May!

Part 1

Today is Edna Green's 78th birthday. Who is Edna Green? These days she is a great-grandmother who lives in Arizona, but there was a time many years ago when she was known as Edna May Wonacott and she was in the movies.

Edna May was nine years old and living with her family in Santa Rosa, California, when she caught the eye of director Alfred Hitchcock while he was in town preparing to make Shadow of a Doubt (1943). The director cast her in the role of Ann Newton, younger sister of the protagonist, Charlie Newton (Teresa Wright) and niece of the villain, Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotten). Edna May made quite a splash in the part and appeared in small roles in other films over the next few years. I recently caught up with her and we talked about the fascinating events of her childhood.

That Alfred Hitchcock happened upon Edna May and cast her in Shadow of a Doubt is a minor legend, but an imprecise one. In some versions of the story, Joseph Cotten was with the director when they met. Edna clearly recalls the circumstances of that fortuitous day when she and two cousins were on their way home from a shopping excursion:

"I was discovered in Santa Rosa, standing on a street corner waiting for a bus. Alfred Hitchcock and producer Jack Skirball were standing at the same corner looking over the town."

That particular corner bus stop, in front of a Karl's shoe store, had a view of several prominent downtown locations including the courthouse, a circular green and the bank (Photo above left shows Hitchcock on that corner). Hitchcock and Skirball were looking and talking and jotting down notes on a clipboard. Edna May watched them and was curious. She edged away from her cousins to be closer to Hitchcock and Skirball so she could find out what was going on. The two men noticed her observing them and began to look her over.

"My older cousin made me move away from them and next to her, and the two men kept looking at me and finally walked over to us and introduced themselves and said they were making a movie in town and wanted to know if I wanted to be in it." They asked for her address and said they would be out to talk to her parents that afternoon.

Edna May ran all the way home to tell her mother that she was going to be in a movie. Her mother, well aware of her daughter's vivid imagination, thought she'd made it up until the cousins arrived and confirmed her story.

The next day, Edna May and her mother were on the night train to Los Angeles where she would make her screen test. The following morning, they taxied from the Glendale depot to Universal Studios, where they were met at the gate and escorted to the audition. Edna May was given a script for the phone scene, the first appearance of Ann Newton in Shadow of a Doubt. Hitchcock directed her, basically instructing her on the reactions and expressions he was after. Edna May wasn't nervous and suffered no stage fright. She just followed Hitchcock's direction and aced the screen test. She said she didn't have to be coaxed into taking the part, adding: "What nine year old wouldn't want to be in a movie?"

The story goes - and it's true - that Edna May had no experience as a performer up to that point, not even in school plays or church pageants.

"I didn't have any acting experience and no interest in ever doing such a thing..."

While at Universal, Edna May and her mother ate in the commissary and were entranced as they watched actors and actresses in costume eating lunch. Edna remembers meeting Abbott and Costello, Deanna Durbin and Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame that day. In fact, she and her mother were offered an all-expenses-paid weekend in Hollywood, including a chauffeur-driven car to take them anywhere they'd like to go. Edna May wanted more than anything to visit the Disney studios, but her mother, unsettled at being away from home and on her own for the first time, didn't want to stay - and they were on the train headed back to Santa Rosa that night.

Though she was a novice, Edna May didn't receive any special training for her performance. She gives credit to the director: "I had no coaching for the part and just took direction from Alfred Hitchcock."

She worked well with him and had no trouble understanding what he wanted from her. She felt it was the same for the other actors in the cast (Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Hume Cronyn, Macdonald Carey, Wallace Ford). She recalls Hitchcock as a very quiet man who kept to himself much of the time (she often saw him reading comic books on the set).

Ann Newton was a unique character, a confident, self-possessed little girl who loved books and didn't hesitate to speak up. She was an observant child, the only family member who took a dubious view of Uncle Charlie early on. I wondered if Edna May had been like Ann Newton as a child. In some ways, she doesn't think so ("I didn't like reading and would rather be outside riding my bike or playing."). On the other hand, she noted that she was "a very confident kid and never doubted I could do anything I wanted to do." And she was observant; it was her curiosity about Hitchcock and Skirball on that street corner that set her Hollywood adventure in motion.

Edna remembers filming Shadow of a Doubt fondly: "The cast and crew were just like one big happy family. No one was treated any differently than anyone else. I had no favorites on the set other than the fact that I was madly in love with Joseph Cotten and melted every time he talked to me. Everybody knew this and I got kidded a lot!"

Her crush on the handsome and chivalrous Mr. Cotten didn't get in the way of her performance, though. Hitchcock's instructions to Edna May regarding her scenes with Cotten were: "It doesn't matter how nice he is to you, always be suspicious of him and question why he's doing what he's doing."

Ann's skepticism of him surfaces the moment Uncle Charlie hands her an ill-chosen teddy bear gift (above left) and Edna May screws up her face and gives him a withering sidelong glance.

Shadow of a Doubt's exterior scenes were shot on location in Santa Rosa, which was unusual for the time. The interiors were shot in Hollywood on a soundstage.

When the time came to travel to Hollywood again, Edna May's mother and brother accompanied her. Her dad, who was a Santa Rosa grocer, stayed home and minded the store. It was her brother who helped her memorize her lines.

(Part 2 posts on Wed., Feb. 10, and tells of Edna May's friendship with young Pat Hitchcock, dinner with the Hitchcocks, a contract with Jack Skirball, mementos of Shadow of a Doubt, being a local celebrity, The Bells of St. Mary's and more details of her time in Hollywood.)

Underrated Performers of the Week: Patricia Collinge and Edna May Wonacott

(Pictured: Edna May Wonacott - seated in front; standing, left to right - Patricia Collinge, Charles Bates, Joseph Cotten and Henry Travers in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt)

This week our spotlight on supporting players takes a look at two standout members of the superb cast of Alfred Hitchcock's 1943 masterwork, Shadow of a Doubt: Patricia Collinge, a veteran stage actress in her second film outing, and Edna May Wonacott, a fledgling actress in her first role.

Patricia Collinge was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1892 and went on the London stage at the age of 18. In 1907, she and her mother emigrated to the U.S. where Collinge found steady work in American theater for the next 45 years.

Collinge originated the role of Birdie Hubbard in the 1939 Broadway production of Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes." She was again cast in the part when the play was adapted to film in 1941. It was her film debut and she garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Collinge's next film was equally auspicious - she was cast in Alfred Hitchcock's great classic, Shadow of a Doubt (several sources concur that she was also involved with script re-writes on the film). She made only seven films in her career and is primarily remembered for those first two. Both characters, Birdie in The Little Foxes and Emma Newton in Shadow of a Doubt, shared a certain tremulous, high-strung quality, but the two existed in very different milieus. Birdie, sensitive and tentative, was crushed by the avaricious and carnivorous Hubbard family; Emma is affectionately respected by the gentler Newton clan and is secure in her position at home and in the community. Collinge depicts both characters in fine detail.

Patricia Collinge's last film was The Nun's Story (1959) with Audrey Hepburn. She appeared on various TV drama anthology programs of the 1950s and in series TV of the 1960s. She passed away in New York City in 1974 at the age of 81.

Edna May Wonacott was born in Willits, California, in 1932. The daughter of a local area grocer, she was discovered by Alfred Hitchcock, who had set Shadow of a Doubt in bucolic Santa Rosa, California, and was using the town's citizens as extras in the film. He selected 9-year-old Edna May to portray Ann, younger sister of the protagonist, Charlie Newton, and daughter of Emma Newton (Collinge). Observant Ann was the one member of the family to be skeptical of charming Uncle Charlie from the beginning.

Following the success of Shadow of a Doubt, Wonacott and family moved to Southern California where she pursued an acting career for a time. She had small roles in only six more films, including the Leo McCarey classic, The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), and appeared on television, but left her career in the early 1950s to marry and raise a family.

Though Edna May Wonacott's career was brief, her striking performance as the smart, self-possessed bookworm, Ann Newton, earned her a place in the hearts of Hitchcock aficiondados and classic film buffs everywhere. She brought an appealing piquancy to each of her scenes and hardly seemed a novice onscreen with the likes of Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Henry Travers, Hume Cronyn, Wallace Ford, Macdonald Carey and Collinge.

Wonacott, now a great-grandmother, lives in Arizona.

Patricia Collinge
The Little Foxes (1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Tender Comrade (1943), Casanova Brown (1944), Teresa (1951), Washington Story (1952),The Nun's Story (1959)

Edna May Wonacott

Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Hi, Beautiful (1944), Under Western Skies (1945), This Love is Ours (1945), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), Sunny Side of the Street (1951), The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951)