Actors - Sara Allgood

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	Actors - Sara Allgood

Sara Allgood (October 31, 1879 – September 13, 1950) was an Oscar-nominated Irish/American character-actress.

Early life

Allgood was born in Dublin, Ireland into a middle-class Irish family. She was educated at the Marlborough Street Training College and joined the Irish National Theatre Society when she was 19. Her sister was actress Maire O'Neill.

Career

Allgood began her acting career at the Abbey Theatre in 1904; within a few years she was lauded as Ireland's foremost actress.

While touring Australia in 1918, she made her film bow in “Just Peggy”. She didn't like the experience, and it would be eleven years before she would face the cameras again, this time in the role of Anna Ondra's mother in “Blackmail” (1929), Alfred Hitchcock's (and the British film industry's) first talkie. One year later, Hitchcock cast her in the demanding title role in the cinematic adaptation of Sean O'Casey's “Juno and the Paycock”, a role she had created on stage with the Abbey Players in 1924.

After a decade of worthwhile stage assignments and forgettable film roles, Allgood came to Hollywood in 1940, where she was cast by John Ford in a strong role in the Oscar-winning “How Green Was My Valley” (1941). She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

This led to a long-term contract with 20th Century-Fox, which was financially satisfying but dramatically unrewarding; after years of incisive, commanding stage roles, she was compelled to play clichéd Irish mothers and servants, mainly in films like the 1941 retelling of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, It Happened in Flatbush, Jane Eyre and The Fabulous Dorseys
.

Sara Allgood's final screen appearance was in Fox's “Cheaper By the Dozen” (1950), in which she received prominent billing – and approximately five lines of dialogue.

Private life

She was married for a short time to British stage actor Gerald Henson. Both Henson and their newborn daughter died of influenza in the outbreak of 1917.

After becoming a United States citizen in 1945, Allgood died of a heart attack in 1950 at the age of 70, in Woodland Hills, California.

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