--- name: "Cathleen Nesbitt" canonical: "https://film.one/person/cathleen-nesbitt" roles: ["Actor"] born: "23 November 1888" died: "2 August 1982" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 65 average_as: "actor" average_over: 3 updated: "2026-09-20T05:51:47.176975+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Cathleen Nesbitt Actor. Born 23 November 1888 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, UK. Died 2 August 1982. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 23 November 1888, Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, UK - **Died:** 2 August 1982 - **Active:** 1954–1977 - **Also known as:** Kathleen Nesbitt, Cathleen Nesbit, Catherine Nesbitt, Kathleen Mary Nesbitt - **Average Fi1m score:** 65, as actor, over 3 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 67 (2), 1970s 60 (1) - **Score spread:** 0 at 80+, 3 at 60–79, 0 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 0 of 3 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Drama 3, Romance 2, History 1 - **Screen time:** 5 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $21m across 1 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathleen_Nesbitt, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q264713, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0626350/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/46098 ## Streaming the US now - **Apple TV:** [*Separate Tables*](https://film.one/film/separate-tables.md) (74) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Cathleen Nesbitt > Cathleen Nesbitt spent seven decades on the stage and came to Hollywood in her sixties to play grandmothers and dowagers. The parts were small, she was witty and urbane in them, and she knew exactly how long to wait before speaking. In *Three Coins in the Fountain* (1954) Cathleen Nesbitt plays the Principessa, mother of the prince Maggie McNamara's Maria is chasing, and it is a small part. She gets the two best lines in the picture and delivers them as though she had been waiting all afternoon for someone to give her the chance. That, as far as the cinema ever saw it, is the Nesbitt method: sit still, say little, make the one line count. She was in her sixties, and it was her first Hollywood part of any size. She had been acting since 1910, a London stage debut and then Broadway the following year with the Irish Players, and she kept at it across seven decades on both sides of the Atlantic. Film had her briefly in the silent era and then more or less forgot her until Hollywood needed a supply of society women with good posture. From 1954 she supplied them: Cary Grant's grandmother Janou in *An Affair to Remember* (1957), Lady Matheson in *Separate Tables* (1958), and, as late as 1976, Julia Rainbird, the old woman who sets Hitchcock's last film, *Family Plot*, in motion. The stage remained the main job. She was the first Mrs Higgins in *My Fair Lady* on Broadway in 1956 and went back to the part in 1981, when she was in her nineties. *Separate Tables* is where to see her. Delbert Mann's Rattigan adaptation splits down the middle, with David Niven and Deborah Kerr on one side and Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth on the other, and Nesbitt belongs to the good half. She and May Hallatt, one with her wireless and the other with her racing form, are the chorus of the hotel, and their ten minutes of gossip over the crossword are worth more than most of the plot. Every time the film cut back to Lancaster and Hayworth being unhappy at each other we wanted it to return to that table, because two old women disapproving of the other guests was doing more for us than anything the leads had been given. Gladys Cooper is in the same cast, and the film is a small lesson in how English character acting of that period worked: nobody raises a voice, and nobody misses. The complaint, such as it is, is that the parts were small and the films were not always up to her. *Three Coins* is a travelogue with love stories attached, and she is a footnote to the thinnest of them. Even in *Family Plot* she is there to start the engine and then step aside. She seems to have known this and not minded. "I haven't been known as a great actress, but I've been a very successful one," she said the year before she died, and it is hard to argue with either half. Start with *Separate Tables*. Then keep an eye out for her in anything else, because she will be at the edge of the frame, waiting, and when she speaks the film will briefly be better than it was. ## Biography Cathleen Nesbitt was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage and screen. Born Kathleen Mary Nesbitt in Birkenhead, Cheshire, she studied at Queen's University Belfast and the Sorbonne, and made her London stage debut in 1910. She appeared in numerous films, including *Pygmalion* (1938), *Three Coins in the Fountain* (1954) as the Principessa, *An Affair to Remember* (1957), *Separate Tables* (1958), *The Parent Trap* (1961), *French Connection II* (1975) and *Family Plot* (1976). She was appointed CBE in 1978. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (3) - *Julia* (1977), Fi1m 60, as Julia's Grandmother — [page](https://film.one/film/julia.md) - *Separate Tables* (1958), Fi1m 74, as Gladys Matheson — [page](https://film.one/film/separate-tables.md) - *Three Coins in the Fountain* (1954), Fi1m 60, as Principessa — [page](https://film.one/film/three-coins-in-the-fountain.md) ## Complete filmography (55) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Perfect House* (1981), as Emma Sloane - *Never Never Land* (1980), as Edith Forbes - *The Old Crowd* (1979), as Mother - *Full Circle* (1978), as Heather Rudge - *Night Cries* (1978), as Mrs. Delesande - *Julia* (1977), as Julia's Grandmother — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/film/julia.md) - *Supernatural* (1977), series, as Lady Sybil Manners - *The White Elephant* (1977), as Lady Alice - *Jubilee 1977* (1977), series, as Lady Alice - *Abide with Me* (1976), as Mrs. Hollins - *Family Plot* (1976), as Julia Rainbird - *Ten from the Twenties* (1975), series, as Mary Nosworthy - *French Connection II* (1975), as The Old Lady - *Upstairs, Downstairs* (1971), series, as Lady Southwold — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/tv/upstairs-downstairs.md) - *Villain* (1971), as Mrs. Dakin - *Great Performances* (1971), series, Actor - *Separate Tables* (1970), as Lady Matheson - *Staircase* (1969), as Harry's Mother - *ITV Playhouse* (1967), series, as The Countess - *The Crucible* (1967), as Rebecca Nurse - *The Trygon Factor* (1966), as Livia Emberday - *Promise Her Anything* (1966), as Mrs. Brock - *BBC Play of the Month* (1965), series, as Lady Matheson - *The Farmer's Daughter* (1963), series, as Agatha Morley - *Feathertop* (1961), as Madame Eau Charme - *The Parent Trap* (1961), as Louise McKendrick - *Mrs. Miniver* (1960), as Lady Beldon - *Separate Tables* (1958), as Gladys Matheson — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/separate-tables.md) - *Heart of Darkness* (1958), as The Crone - *Wuthering Heights* (1958), as Ellen Dean - *An Affair to Remember* (1957), as Grandmother Janou - *Désirée* (1954), as Mme. Bonaparte - *Black Widow* (1954), as Lucia Colletti - *Producers' Showcase* (1954), series, as Mrs. Moorehead - *Three Coins in the Fountain* (1954), as Principessa — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/film/three-coins-in-the-fountain.md) - *So Long at the Fair* (1950), as Madame Hervé - *Madness of the Heart* (1949), as Mother Superior - *Jassy* (1947), as Elizabeth Twisdale - *The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby* (1947), as Miss Knag - *Men of Two Worlds* (1946), as Mrs. Upjohn - *Caesar and Cleopatra* (1945), as Egyptian Lady (uncredited) - *The Agitator* (1945), as Mrs. Montrose - *Fanny by Gaslight* (1944), as Kate Somerford - *The Lamp Still Burns* (1943), as The Matron - *The Door with Seven Locks* (1940), as Ann Cody - *Law and Disorder* (1940), as Miss. Sampson - *A Dream of Love* (1939), as Baroness St. Cricq (uncredited) - *Pygmalion* (1938), as A Lady - *Against the Tide* (1937), as Margaret Leigh - *The Beloved Vagabond* (1936), as Mme. Boin - *The Passing of the Third Floor Back* (1935), as Mrs. Tomkin - *Falling in Love* (1934), as Mother - *The Frightened Lady* (1932), as Lady Lebanon - *Canaries Sometimes Sing* (1930), as Anne Lymes - *The Faithful Heart* (1922), as Diana Oughterson ## Gallery - ![Cathleen Nesbitt in the TV series The Farmer's Daughter - publicity still (modified and cropped : see sources) (1963)](https://film.one/media/person/1231139/gallery-11224327dd06.jpg) Cathleen Nesbitt in the TV series The Farmer's Daughter - publicity still (modified and cropped : see sources) (1963) — unknown (ABC TV), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Cathleen_Nesbitt_in_The_Farmer%27s_Daughter.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Photo of Cathleen Nesbitt as Agatha Morley, the Congressman's mother, from the television program The Farmer's Daughter.](https://film.one/media/person/1231139/gallery-806c447b6427.jpg) Photo of Cathleen Nesbitt as Agatha Morley, the Congressman's mother, from the television program The Farmer's Daughter. — The Farmer's Daughter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Cathleen_Nesbitt_The_Farmer%27s_Daughter_1963.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Cathleen Nesbitt](https://film.one/media/person/1231139/gallery-ca394a9de9f0.jpg) Cathleen Nesbitt — Carl Van Vechten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Cathleen_Nesbitt.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) ## Awards ### Other awards — 1 won - Commander of the Order of the British Empire 1978: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/cathleen-nesbitt