Actress. She is best remembered for her portrayals of the wholesome Aunt Miranda in "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (1938) and as the staunch Madame LeMaire in "All This, and Heaven Too" (1940). After helping establish the original Theatre Guild in her native New York, she began her career on the stage beginning with her appearance in "Peer and Gynt." After being befriended by the acclaimed playwright George Bernard Shaw, she flourished as a character actress per his influence appearing in leading roles within such stage productions as "Another Interior," "Helena's Husband," "The Age of Reason," "The Seagull," "Youth," "The Life of Man," "Crops and Croppers," "Redemption," "Hobohemia," "The Faithful," "John Ferguson," "The Rise of Silas Lampman," "The Power of Darkness," "Jane Clegg," "Heartbreak House," "Mr. Pim Passes By," "Liliom," "He Who Gets Slapped," "From Morn to Midnight," "The Lucky One," "The Tidings Brought to Mary," "The Adding Machine," "Ceasar and Cleopatra," "The Glass Slipper," "Merchants of Glory," "Pygmalion," "Strange Interlude," "The Doctor's Dilemma," "Green Grow the Lilacs," and "Liliom". In the early 1930s, she began to divide time between New York City, New York, and Los Angeles, California, appearing in motion pictures. Often typecast as a matriarch, dowager, wealthy widow, society woman, eccentric aunt, headmistress, grandmother, or old maid, she enjoyed an equally long career in the film industry appearing in over 30 motion pictures between 1934 and 1942. Some of her features include "Moulin Rouge" (1934), "The House of Rothschild" (1934), "Death Takes a Holiday" (1934), "The Age of Innocence" (1934), "Roberta" (1935), "Captain Hurricane" (1935), "Splendor" (1935), "The Melody Lingers On" (1935), "Half Angel" (1936), "Banjo on my Knee" (1936), "Stowaway" (1936), "Café Metropole" (1937), "Heidi" (1937), "Sing and Be Happy" (1937), "I'll Take Romance" (1937), "She Married an Artist" (1937), "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1938), "The Baroness and the Butler" (1938), "Keep Smiling" (1938), "Zaza" (1938), "Wife, Husband, and Friend" (1939), "Lillian Russell" (1940), "The Captain is a Lady" (1940), "Lady with Red Hair" (1940), "Adam Had Four Sons" (1941), "Sunny" (1941), "The Smiling Ghost" (1941), "Million Dollar Baby" (1941), "Bedtime Story" (1941), and "My Favorite Spy" (1942). During her career, she was married to actor John Westley, whose surname she took as her own when she began her career, from 1900 to 1912; the union ended in divorce. Upon her retirement, she moved out of the city and settled into the home of her daughter, Ethel, in Somerset County, New Jersey, where she spent the last year of her life spending time with her family and being an active parishioner in the Episcopal church.