About Gale Sondergaard
Gale Sondergaard (born Edith Holm Sondergaard; February 15, 1899 – August 14, 1985) was an American actress. Sondergaard began her acting career in theater and progressed to films in 1936. She was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film debut in Anthony Adverse (1936). She regularly had supporting roles in films during the late 1930s and 1940s, including The Cat and the Canary (1939), The Mark of Zorro (1940) and The Letter (1940). For her role in Anna and the King of Siam (1946), she was nominated for her second Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. After 1949, her screen work came to an abrupt end for 20 years, primarily due to the Hollywood blacklist. Married to director Herbert Biberman, Sondergaard supported him when he was accused of communism and imprisoned as one of the Hollywood Ten in the early 1950s. She moved with Biberman to New York City and worked in theater. She only returned to occasional acting in film and television beginning in 1969, when she moved back to Los Angeles. She died from cerebrovascular thrombosis in 1985. She made her first film appearance in Anthony Adverse (1936) as the scheming social climber Faith Paleologus, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The Name Below the Title: 65 Classic Movie Character Actors from Hollywood's Golden Age (softcover) (First ed.).
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.