--- name: "Edith Evans" canonical: "https://film.one/person/edith-evans" roles: ["Actor"] born: "8 February 1888" died: "14 October 1976" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 79 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-20T04:03:42.079050+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." --- # Edith Evans Actor. Born 8 February 1888 in London, England, UK. Died 14 October 1976. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 8 February 1888, London, England, UK - **Died:** 14 October 1976 - **Active:** 1959–1963 - **Also known as:** Эдит Эванс, Edith Mary Evans - **BAFTA Film Awards:** 1 BAFTA (1 won) - **Average Fi1m score:** 79, as actor, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 84 (1), 1960s 74 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Evans, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q236718, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0262725/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/45465 ## Streaming the US now - **Tubi:** [*The Nun's Story*](https://film.one/film/the-nuns-story.md) (84) - **HBO Max:** [*Tom Jones*](https://film.one/film/tom-jones.md) (74) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Edith Evans > Edith Evans spent sixty years on the stage and came to film late, bringing a voice that could stretch two syllables into a verdict. Best in comedy, where every line lands exactly where she aims it; less sure when asked to fall apart. Two words. Lady Bracknell learns that the young man in front of her was found, as a baby, in a piece of luggage, and Edith Evans takes "A handbag?" and stretches it until the question stops being a question and becomes a verdict on the whole lower orders. It is the most famous thing she did on screen, in the 1952 *The Importance of Being Earnest*, and it shows how she worked. She did not act much with her face, and hardly at all with her body. She acted with the placing of a syllable. The screen got her late. She made her professional debut in 1912, as Cressida for William Poel, after an apprenticeship in a milliner's, and spent the following decades on the stage: Millamant in *The Way of the World* in 1924, the Nurse in *Romeo and Juliet* in an Old Vic season of 1925 to 1926, Shaw, more than a hundred parts across sixty years. Film hardly featured until she returned to it in 1948, and it is the run through the 1950s, 60s and 70s that most people now know: Bracknell, Miss Western in Tony Richardson's *Tom Jones* (1963), Mrs St Maugham in *The Chalk Garden* (1964), the lead in *The Whisperers* (1967). Richardson directed her twice. The one we have reviewed is the quietest. In Fred Zinnemann's *The Nun's Story* (1959) she is Reverend Mother Emmanuel, and she has perhaps four scenes. In each she tells Audrey Hepburn's young nun the terms of the life she has chosen, and she tells them as facts, not warnings: no threat in it, and no comfort either. We sat still through those scenes, and it was the flatness that did it. She gives the rules the same weight she would give the weather, and it is Hepburn's face, not hers, that has to register what they cost. A lesser actor would have played the Reverend Mother as an obstacle. Evans plays her as someone who went through the door years ago and is simply describing the other side. Comedy is where she was safest. The Restoration and Wilde parts, Millamant and Bracknell above all, are the ones critics kept returning to, and the reason is timing: she could hold a pause past the point of comfort and release it on the right word. Tragedy came less easily. Some found her Cleopatra, in productions of the 1940s, less convincing, and we can see why: a voice built to make a rebuke ring is not the first thing you want from a woman coming apart. She knew which women she understood. "I know those sort of women," she said of preparing Bracknell. "They ring the bell and tell you to put a lump of coal on the fire." Start with Bracknell, for the voice, then *The Nun's Story*, for what she could do when she put the voice away. The later films cast her as downtrodden or eccentric old women rather than dowagers, and she is worth following there, though the dowagers are the reason to come. ## Biography Dame Edith Mary Evans (1888–1976) was an English actress best known for her work on the British stage. She made her professional debut in 1912 and joined the Old Vic company in 1925, appearing in a range of classic and modern roles over several decades. She was appointed DBE in 1946. Evans also appeared in films, particularly later in her career. Notable screen roles include Lady Bracknell in *The Importance of Being Earnest* (1952), Rev. Mother Emmanuel in *The Nun's Story* (1959), Miss Western in *Tom Jones* (1963), and the lead in *The Whisperers* (1967). She received three Academy Award nominations for her film work, as well as a BAFTA and a Golden Globe. *Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Tom Jones* (1963), Fi1m 74, as Miss Western — [page](https://film.one/film/tom-jones.md) - *The Nun's Story* (1959), Fi1m 84, as Rev. Mother Emmanuel — [page](https://film.one/film/the-nuns-story.md) ## Complete filmography (26) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Nasty Habits* (1977), as Sister Hildegard - *The Slipper and the Rose* (1976), as Dowager Queen - *Craze* (1974), as Aunt Louise - *QB VII* (1974), series, as Dr. Parmentier - *A Doll's House* (1973), as Anne-Marie - *Scrooge* (1970), as Ghost of Christmas Past - *Upon This Rock* (1970), as Queen Christina (voice) - *David Copperfield* (1969), as Aunt Betsy Trotwood - *The Madwoman of Chaillot* (1969), as Josephine - *Crooks and Coronets* (1969), as Lady Sophie Fitzmore - *ITV Saturday Night Theatre* (1969), series, as Dame Maud Gosport - *Prudence and the Pill* (1968), as Roberta Bates - *Fitzwilly* (1967), as Miss Victoria Woodworth - *The Whisperers* (1967), as Mrs Ross - *Young Cassidy* (1965), as Lady Gregory - *The Chalk Garden* (1964), as Mrs. St. Maugham - *Tom Jones* (1963), as Miss Western — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/tom-jones.md) - *Look Back in Anger* (1959), as Mrs. Tanner - *The Nun's Story* (1959), as Rev. Mother Emmanuel — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/the-nuns-story.md) - *ITV Opening Night at the Guildhall* (1955), as Lady Bracknell - *The Importance of Being Earnest* (1952), as Lady Bracknell - *Hallmark Hall of Fame* (1951), series, as Duchess of Pont-au-Bronc - *The Last Days of Dolwyn* (1949), as Merri - *The Queen of Spades* (1949), as The Old Countess Ranevskaya - *East Is East* (1916), as Aunt - *A Welsh Singer* (1916), as Mrs. Pomfrey ## Gallery - ![Dame Edith Evans taken at her home in Goudhurst Sussex England (1972)](https://film.one/media/person/1239894/gallery-03897fa14ab1.jpg) Dame Edith Evans taken at her home in Goudhurst Sussex England (1972) — Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Dame_Edith_Evans_4_Allan_Warren.jpg/1280px-Dame_Edith_Evans_4_Allan_Warren.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Edith Evans](https://film.one/media/person/1239894/gallery-955950b689ab.jpg) Edith Evans — Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Dame_Edith_Evans_Allan_Warren.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Dame Edith Evans (1973)](https://film.one/media/person/1239894/gallery-643fd56a915c.jpg) Dame Edith Evans (1973) — Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Dame_Edith_Evans_2_Allan_Warren.jpg/1280px-Dame_Edith_Evans_2_Allan_Warren.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Dame Edith Evens (1972)](https://film.one/media/person/1239894/gallery-2160a391d7e4.jpg) Dame Edith Evens (1972) — Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Dame_Edith_Evans_6_Allan_Warren.jpg/1280px-Dame_Edith_Evans_6_Allan_Warren.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Edith Evans](https://film.one/media/person/1239894/gallery-62c1abc5969b.jpg) Edith Evans — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 3 nominated - 1968: Best Actress (nominated), for *The Whisperers* - 1965: Best Supporting Actress (nominated), for *The Chalk Garden* - 1964: Best Supporting Actress (nominated), for *Tom Jones* ### BAFTA Film Awards — 1 won - 1968: Best Actress in a Leading Role (won), for *The Whisperers* ### Golden Globes — 1 won - 1968: Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama (won), for *The Whisperers* ### Berlin International Film Festival — 1 won - 1967: Best Actress (won), for *The Whisperers* ### Other awards — 1 won - Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire 1946: Dame 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/edith-evans