Margaret Wycherly

Wycherly was born in London, England to a Canadian father and American mother, Dr. and Mrs. J. L. De Wolfe. She was married to writer Bayard Veiller (1869–1943) in 1901. They had a son, Anthony Veiller (1903–1965), who also became a writer. She and Veiller divorced in 1922. She was primarily a stage actress, appearing in one silent film. In 1929, she appeared in her second film, but first talkie, The Thirteenth Chair, based on the 1916 play by her husband in which she had starred. The film was directed by Tod Browning and was in the genre of mystery-old house melodrama. Twelve years later, Wycherley appeared in Sergeant York in 1941. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role of Mother York, though perhaps her best remembered screen role was as Ma Jarrett, the mother of the psychopathic gangster Cody Jarrett, in White Heat (1949), which starred James Cagney.

Wycherly starred in several popular Broadway plays, including Mixed Marriage(1920), Tobacco Road(1933), Liliom, Six Characters in Search of an Author(1922) and The Thirteenth Chair(1916) (which role she reprised in the 1929 film of the same name). Her other films include Keeper of the Flame, The Yearling, Random Harvest, Forever Amber, The Man with a Cloak and Johnny Angel starring George Raft.

She portrayed Mrs. Brown, Claudia's mother, in the American television series Claudia (1952).