Marjorie Eaton

Marjorie Eaton
Marjorie Lee Eaton (February 5, 1901 – April 21, 1986) was an American painter, photographer and character actress.
Biography
Eaton was born in Oakland, California and raised in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California. She attended the Katherine Delmar Burke School and graduated in 1920. She studied at The Art Institute of Boston, in Florence, Italy and in Paris.
In 1925, Eaton's stepmother, Edith Cox Eaton, purchased the historic Palo Alto house of Juana Briones de Miranda and it became a celebrated art colony and family home up until 2011, when it was demolished. Artist Lucretia Van Horn and sculptor Louise Nevelson spent significant periods of time there, as did Marjorie. In 1939, Marjorie designed and built her own adobe near the Briones house working closely with renowned architect Gregory Ain. Marjorie Eaton had taken painting classes with Hans Hofmann at the Art Students League of New York and afterwards shared a studio with Louise Nevelson whom she met at the League. Marjorie and Louise lived downstairs from Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and the four became close friends and fellow artists.
Though trained in the Stanislavsky method of acting, Marjorie Eaton's initial career choice was to work as either an architect or commercial artist. Before acting, she had joined the art colony in Taos, New Mexico from 1928 to 1932 and Mexico from 1933 to 1935,
where she lived with and worked with Diego Rivera on locations in northern Mexico. She gained "a reputation for modernist figural work with bold lines, strong color, and Cubist influenced." Her painting "Taos Ceremony" was exhibited in December 2008 as part of a retrospective exhibit "Colorado and the Old West", which showcased 19th and 20th century artworks related to Colorado and New Mexico. However, she found it impossible to make a living as a woman artist, so she gave up painting entirely and turned to acting.
Eaton appeared both in film and on stage, performing in a number of Broadway plays. She made her (uncredited) film debut in Anna and the King of Siam in 1946. Later roles included Hester Forstye in That Forsyte Woman (1949), Madame Romanovitch in Night Tide (1961), the starring role of Hetty March in the low-budget, science fiction B movie Monstrosity (1963), Miss Persimmon in Mary Poppins (1964), and Sister Ursula in The Trouble with Angels (1966).
In 1979, aged 78, Eaton filmed a scene for the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, in which she portrayed the role of Emperor Palpatine, under heavy makeup. She was one of two actresses that shot the scene with the makeup, the other being Elaine Baker (wife of makeup artist Rick Baker). The final character had superimposed chimpanzee eyes and was voiced by Clive Revill. Neither woman received on-screen credit, and sources disagree about which actress appears in the final film. The scene was replaced by one with Ian McDiarmid for the 2004 special edition.
In March 1986, Eaton suffered a stroke. On April 21, 1986, she died at her childhood home in Palo Alto surrounded by two nieces and a nephew by marriage. After the memorial services, her cremated ashes were scattered in two places: half over the property where she grew up and half in Taos where she spent years as an artist.
Filmography
Film
Anna and the King of Siam (1946) as Miss MacFarlane (uncredited)
The Time of Their Lives (1946) as Bessie (uncredited)
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) as Woman at home
A Woman's Vengeance (1948) as Maid (uncredited)
The Snake Pit (1948) as Patient (uncredited)
That Forsyte Woman (1949) as Hester Forsyte
The Story of Seabiscuit (1949) as Miss Newsome (uncredited)
The Vicious Years (1950) as Zia Lola
Hollywood Story (1951) as Weird-Looking Woman (uncredited)
Rose of Cimarron (1952) as Townswoman (uncredited)
Hold That Line (1952) as Miss Whitsett (uncredited)
Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) as Grandmother Peters
Witness for the Prosecution (1957) as Miss O'Brien (uncredited)
Night Tide (1961) as Madame Romanovitch
The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962) as Mrs. McGinnis (uncredited)
Monstrosity/The Atomic Brain (1963) as Hetty March
Mary Poppins (1964) as Miss Persimmon
The Trouble with Angels (1966) as Sister Ursula
Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) as Housekeeper #3
Bullitt (1968) as Mrs. Larkin (uncredited)
Hail, Hero! (1969) as Carl's Aunt
Harold and Maude (1971) as Madame Arouet (uncredited)
Hammersmith Is Out (1972) as Princess
The Killing Kind (1973) as Mrs. Orland
The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975) as Astrology Lady
Cardiac Arrest (1980) as Mrs. Swan
The Attic (1980) as Mrs. Fowler
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) as The Emperor (voiced by Clive Revill) (uncredited)
Street Music (1981) as Mildred
Crackers (1984) as Mrs. O'Malley (final film role)
Television
The Lone Ranger (1 episode, 1950) as Essie Newton
Hallmark Hall of Fame (1 episode, 1953)
Studio One in Hollywood (1 episode, 1954) as Marha
Robert Montgomery Presents (2 episodes, 1952-1955)
The Adventures of Jim Bowie (1 episode, 1957) as Mme. Beaubrun
The Loretta Young Show (1 episode, 1959) as Sara
Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond (1 episode, 1959) as Miss Parsons
My Three Sons (2 episodes, 1960-1961) as Cynthia Pitts
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1 episode, 1962) as Landlady
Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1 episode, 1963) as Old Woman
Mr. Terrific Mr. Terrific (1 episode, 1967) as Princess
Then Came Bronson (1 episode, 1969) as Madame Vanya
The F.B.I. (1 episode, 1970) as Mrs. Elbert
The Streets of San Francisco (1 episode, 1973)
The Waltons (1 episode, 1973) as Mrs. Crofut
Theatre
Eaton's Broadway credits include Merchant of Venice, Bell, Book and Candle in 1950, In the Summer House in 1953, and One Eye Closer in 1954.
References
Further reading
Rindfleisch, Jan, with articles by Maribel Alvarez and Raj Jayadev, edited by Nancy Hom and Ann Sherman. Roots and Offshoots: Silicon Valley's Arts Community. Santa Clara, CA: Ginger Press., 2017. pp. 44–52.
External links
1901 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American actresses
American film actresses
American stage actresses
American television actresses
Artists from Oakland, California
Art Students League of New York alumni
American women painters
Actresses from Oakland, California
Painters from California
20th-century American women artists