Actors - Spring Byington

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	Actors - Spring Byington

Spring Byington (October 17, 1886 - September 7, 1971) was an Oscar-nominated American actress.

Early life

Byington was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She began acting on the stage in Denver, Colorado at the age of 14 at the turn of the 20th century. She eventually performed on Broadway, and then debuted in movies in the 1933 production of Little Women as "Marmee".

Career

Spring Byington made her Broadway debut in 1924, in George S. Kaufman and Marc Connolly's Beggar on Horseback. She became a regular on Broadway throughout the 1920s and 30s,including roles in Kaufman and Moss Hart's Once in a Lifetime
, Rachel Crothers's When Ladies Meet and Dawn Powell's Jig Saw.

In 1938, Byington was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for You Can't Take it With You. Other movies included Mutiny on the Bounty
, Way Down East
, Dodsworth
, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, The Devil and Miss Jones
, Meet John Doe
, Roxie Hart, Heaven Can Wait
, I'll Be Seeing You, The Enchanted Cottage and In the Good Old Summertime
.

By the early 1950s, Byington's movie career was on the wane, when she was cast as the flighty mother-in-law in the television sitcom December Bride, which ran from 1954 - 1959. From 1961 - 1963, she appeared in the Western series Laramie. Her last role before her death from cancer was as Larry Hagman's mother on I Dream of Jeannie, but she died during the run of the series.

Byington has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for movies at 6507 Hollywood Blvd. and one for television at 6233 Hollywood Blvd.

Private Life

Byington was privately a lesbian. As is recently coming to light to the public, lesbianism was extremely common during the silver screen years of Hollywood. Interviewed by Boze Hadleigh for his book on Hollywood Lesbians, Byington's lesbian lover, actress Marjorie Main, with whom she had openly lived in Los Angeles, declared that "...it's true that Spring had no use for men", despite Byington's marriage(s) and children. Byington was also linked in an affair with actress/writer Maude Adams.

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