Clara Blandick - wikipedia Clara Blandick This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( April 2008 ) Clara Blandick Blandick ( c. 1895 ) in a photograph by Otto Sarony Clara Blanchard Dickey ( 1876 - 06 - 04 ) June 4, 1876 Hong Kong April 15, 1962 ( 1962 - 04 - 15 ) ( aged 85 ) Hollywood, California, U.S. Cause of death Suicide Resting place Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery Occupation Actress Years active 1900 -- 1951 Spouse ( s ) Harry Stanton Elliott ( m. 1905 -- 1912 ; divorced ) Clara Blandick ( born Clara Blanchard Dickey ; June 4, 1876 -- April 15, 1962 ) was an American stage and screen actress best known for her role as Aunt Em in MGM 's The Wizard of Oz ( 1939 ). As a character actress, she often played eccentric elderly matriarchs. Contents 1 Early life 2 Acting 3 The Wizard of Oz and later years 4 Personal life and death 5 Partial filmography 6 References 7 Footnotes 8 External links Early life She was born Clara Dickey, the daughter of Isaac B. and Hattie ( née Mudgett ) Dickey, aboard the Willard Mudgett -- an American ship captained by her father ( named after one of her maternal relatives ), and docked in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong. She was delivered by Captain William H. Blanchard, whose ship, `` Wealthy Pendleton, '' was anchored nearby. His wife, Clara Pendleton Blanchard, was present, as well. To thank the Blanchards, Captain and Mrs. Dickey named their daughter Clara Blanchard Dickey. When she became successful as an actress, she took the first syllable of `` Blanchard '' and the first syllable of `` Dickey '' to create her stage name, `` Clara Blandick ''. While she often used 1880 as her year of birth for professional purposes, she was actually born in 1876. According to the newspaper Daily Alta California, both the Willard Mudgett and the Wealthy Pendleton were in Hong Kong Harbor in June 1876. By 1880, Captain Dickey was in command of a different ship ( the William Hales ), and the rest of the family was in Quincy. Clara Blandick as Aunty Em Acting Her parents settled in Quincy, Massachusetts, by 1879 or 1880. Sources vary on when the Dickeys settled there, and Clara may have been two or three years old when they made the move. In nearby Boston she met the Shakespearean actor E.H. Sothern, with whom she appeared in a production of Richard Lovelace. She moved from Boston to New York City by 1900, and began pursuing acting as a career. Her first professional appearance came in 1901, when she was cast as Jehanneton in the play If I Were King, which ran for 56 performances at Garden Theatre ( an early component of Madison Square Garden ). She achieved acclaim for her role in The Christian and was described by newspaper critics as a `` dainty, petite, and graceful '' heroine. In 1903 she played Gwendolyn in the Broadway premiere of E.W. Hornung 's Raffles The Amateur Cracksman opposite Kyrle Bellew. She started in pictures with the ' Kalem company in 1908 and made a number of appearances like in The Maid 's Double in 1911. Blandick finally broke onto Broadway in 1912, when she was cast as Dolores Pennington in Widow By Proxy which ran for 88 performances through early 1913 at George M. Cohan 's Theatre on Broadway. During this same period she appeared on stages throughout the Northeastern United States as a member of Sylvester Poli 's stock theater company, The Poli Players. She continued to achieve acclaim for her stage work, playing a number of starring roles, including the lead in Madame Butterfly. By 1914, she was back on the silver screen, as Emily Mason in the film Mrs. Black is Back. During World War I, Blandick performed some overseas volunteer work for the American Expeditionary Force in France. She also continued to act on stage and occasionally in silent pictures. In 1924, she earned rave reviews for her supporting role in the Pulitzer Prize winning play Hell - Bent Fer Heaven, which ran for 122 performances at the Klaw Theatre in New York ( later renamed CBS Radio Playhouse No. 2 ). In 1929, Blandick moved to Hollywood. By the 1930s, she was well known in theatrical and film circles as an established supporting actress. Though she landed roles like Aunt Polly in the 1930 film Tom Sawyer ( a role she reprised in the 1931 film Huckleberry Finn ), she spent much of the decade as a character actor, often going uncredited. In Pre-Code films she often played mothers, including those of characters played by Joan Crawford ( Possessed ) and Joan Blondell ( Three on a Match ). At a time when many actors were permanently attached to a single studio, she played a wide number of bit parts for almost every major Hollywood studio ( though she would later be under contract with 20th Century Fox ). In 1930, she acted in nine different films. In 1931 she was in thirteen different films. As is the case with some other busy character actors, it is difficult to make an exact tally of the films in which Blandick appeared but a reasonable estimate would fall between 150 and 200. The Wizard of Oz and later years In 1939, Blandick landed her most memorable minor role yet -- Auntie Em in MGM 's classic The Wizard of Oz. Though it was a small part ( Blandick filmed all her scenes in a single week ), the character was an important symbol of protagonist Dorothy 's quest to return home to her beloved aunt and uncle -- a snipe at people who revere glitz and tinsel over a happy homelife. ( Auntie Em and Uncle Henry are the only characters from the beginning of the movie, in black - and - white Kansas, not to have alter ego characters in the Land Of Oz. ) Blandick beat out May Robson, Janet Beecher, and Sarah Padden for the role, and earned $750 per week. Some believed Auntie Em 's alter ego was to be the Good Witch of the North but the studio opted to use different actresses for each role rather than have a dual role for this. The reason was they wanted someone younger looking to contrast the good witch from the bad witches, although Billie Burke, who played the Witch of the North, was only eight years younger. Blandick is only credited in the movie 's closing credits. After The Wizard of Oz, Blandick returned to her staple of character acting in supporting and bit roles. She would continue to act in a wide variety of roles in dozens of films. She played the spiteful Mrs. Pringle in 1940s Anne of Windy Poplars, a surprised customer in the 1941 Marx Brothers film The Big Store, a fashionable socialite in the 1944 musical Ca n't Help Singing, and a cold - blooded murderer in the 1947 mystery Philo Vance Returns. Her final two roles both came in 1950 -- playing a housekeeper and a landlady in Key to the City and Love That Brute, respectively. She retired from acting at the age of 69 and went into seclusion at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Personal life and death Blandick was married on December 7, 1905, in Manhattan, to mining engineer Harry Stanton Elliott. Prior to his mining career, Elliott had been an actor, and the two had starred together in `` The Christian ''. They separated by 1910, and are said to have divorced in 1912. They had no children. Throughout the 1950s, Blandick 's health steadily began to fail. She started going blind and began suffering from severe arthritis. On April 15, 1962, she returned home from Palm Sunday services at her church. Her residence was 1735 North Wilcox Avenue, Los Angeles, California. She began rearranging her room, placing her favorite photos and memorabilia in prominent places. She laid out her resume and a collection of press clippings from her lengthy career. She dressed immaculately in an elegant royal blue dressing gown, and with her hair properly styled, she took an overdose of sleeping pills. She lay down on a couch, covered herself with a gold blanket over her shoulders, and tied a plastic bag over her head. Blandick left the following note : `` I am now about to make the great adventure. I can not endure this agonizing pain any longer. It is all over my body. Neither can I face the impending blindness. I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen. '' Her landlady, Helen Mason, found her body Sunday morning. In preparing to die, Blandick had disposed of all her medicines the previous week. Blandick was survived by a niece, Catherine Hopkins, of Camarillo, California. Blandick 's ashes were interred at the Great Mausoleum, Columbarium of Security ( Niche 17230 ) at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale. Blandick 's cremated remains lie just yards from those of her on - screen husband in The Wizard of Oz, actor Charley Grapewin ( whose remains are in Niche 14639 ). She is interred along with the ashes of her older sister, Marcia D. Young, and Marcia 's husband George A. Young. Partial filmography The Maid 's Double ( 1911 ) His Inspiration ( 1914 ) Mrs. Black Is Back ( 1914 ) The Cabaret Singer ( 1915 ) The Seventh Commandment ( 1915 ) The Legacy of Folly ( 1915 ) The Stolen Triumph ( 1916 ) Peggy, the Will O ' the Wisp ( 1917 ) Wise Girls ( 1929 ) Poor Aubrey ( 1930 ) Burning Up ( 1930 ) The Girl Said No ( 1930 ) Men Are Like That ( 1930 ) The Sins of the Children ( 1930 ) Romance ( 1930 ) The Last of the Duanes ( 1930 ) Tom Sawyer ( 1930 ) Once a Sinner ( 1931 ) Inspiration ( 1931 ) The Easiest Way ( 1931 ) The Drums of Jeopardy ( 1931 ) It 's a Wise Child ( 1931 ) Daybreak ( 1931 ) Laughing Sinners ( 1931 ) I Take This Woman ( 1931 ) New Adventures of Get Rich Quick Wallingford ( 1931 ) Bought ! ( 1931 ) Possessed ( 1931 ) as Marian 's Mother Murder at Midnight ( 1931 ) Huckleberry Finn ( 1931 ) The Wet Parade ( 1932 ) Shopworn ( 1932 ) The Strange Case of Clara Deane ( 1932 ) Two Against the World ( 1932 ) Life Begins ( 1932 ) Three on a Match ( 1932 ) Rockabye ( 1932 ) The Bitter Tea of General Yen ( 1933 ) Child of Manhattan ( 1933 ) The Mind Reader ( 1933 ) Three Cornered Moon ( 1933 ) One Sunday Afternoon ( 1933 ) Turn Back the Clock ( 1933 ) Charlie Chan 's Greatest Case ( 1933 ) Ever in My Heart ( 1933 ) Going Hollywood ( 1933 ) The Bitter Tea of General Yen ( 1933 ) Beloved ( 1934 ) As the Earth Turns ( 1934 ) The Show - Off ( 1934 ) Harold Teen ( 1934 ) Sisters Under the Skin ( 1934 ) The Girl from Missouri ( 1934 ) The President Vanishes ( 1934 ) Jealousy ( 1934 ) Broadway Bill ( 1934 ) Fugitive Lady ( 1934 ) Party Wire ( 1935 ) Straight from the Heart ( 1935 ) Princess O'Hara ( 1935 ) Hearts Divided ( 1936 ) Anthony Adverse ( 1936 ) The Case of the Velvet Claws ( 1936 ) The Gorgeous Hussy ( 1936 ) A Star is Born ( 1937 ) as Aunt Mattie ( uncredited ) Wings Over Honolulu ( 1937 ) Crime Ring ( 1938 ) My Old Kentucky Home ( 1938 ) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ( 1939 ) The Wizard of Oz ( 1939 ) as Aunt Em Drums Along the Mohawk ( 1939 ) Swanee River ( 1939 ) Dreaming Out Loud ( 1940 ) Youth Will Be Served ( 1940 ) North West Mounted Police ( 1940 ) The Big Store ( 1941 ) The Wagons Roll at Night ( 1941 ) as Mrs. Williams It Started with Eve ( 1941 ) Rings on Her Fingers ( 1942 ) Dixie ( 1943 ) Heaven Can Wait ( 1943 ) Du Barry Was a Lady ( 1943 ) Ca n't Help Singing ( 1944 ) Pillow of Death ( 1945 ) A Stolen Life ( 1946 ) Philo Vance Returns ( 1947 ) Life with Father ( 1947 ) as Miss Wiggins, the Maid Service Employment Agent The Bride Goes Wild ( 1948 ) Mr. Soft Touch ( 1949 ) Key to the City ( 1950 ) as Liza References Chicago Daily Tribune, Clara Real ' Ship 's Daughter ', January 30, 1910. Los Angeles Times, Actress Clara Blandick Plays Farewell Scene, April 16, 1962, Page A1. Footnotes Jump up ^ 1880 United States Census Household Record : Isaac B. Dickey family at familysearch.org Jump up ^ Manhattan marriage certificate # 26838 External links Biography portal Wikimedia Commons has media related to Clara Blandick. Clara Blandick at the Internet Broadway Database Clara Blandick on IMDb Portrait gallery ( NYPublic Library, Billy Rose collection ) Clara Blandick at AllMovie Clara Blandick at Find a Grave VIAF : 314799618 LCCN : n85378946 IATH : w6d29r50 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clara_Blandick&oldid=806190414 '' Categories : 1876 births 1962 deaths American actresses who committed suicide American film actresses American silent film actresses American stage actresses Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park ( Glendale ) Drug - related suicides in California People from Quincy, Massachusetts Actresses from Massachusetts Female suicides 20th - century American actresses 20th Century Fox contract players Hidden categories : Articles needing additional references from April 2008 All articles needing additional references Articles with hCards All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from June 2013 Articles with IBDb links Find a Grave template with ID same as Wikidata Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC - ID identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Asturianu Deutsch Español فارسی Français Italiano Polski Русский Simple English Suomi Edit links This page was last edited on 20 October 2017, at 09 : 22. 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Question: who played auntie em in the wizard of oz
Answer: Clara Blandick