- About The Movie
- Cast Biographies
Lucile Watson as Miss Doshy
Lucile Watson was born in Quebec, Canada, and raised in Ottawa. She moved to New York City to enroll at New York's Academy of Dramatic Arts. She was identified early on as a comedienne, and in 1902 at age 23, she appeared in the play The Wisdom of the Wise and in Hearts Aflame on Broadway. She also appeared in several Clyde Fitch plays into the 1910s, and by the time she moved to motion pictures, she had appeared in an estimated 39 Broadway plays.
Watson's stage popularity eventually led her to Hollywood. In 1916, she appeared in an uncredited role in The Girl with Green Eyes. Her next uncredited movie role would not occur until 1930 in The Royal Family of Broadway. From there, she moved her way up in the credits, and made memorable appearances in many of the most successful motion pictures of the 30s and 40s. Usually cast as a woman of great determination and strength, Watson played opposite such stars as Marlene Dietrich, Basil Rathbone, Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Joan Crawford, Vivien Leigh, Rosalind Russell, Gene Terney and Tyrone Power.
In 1943, her critically acclaimed performace in the film version of Lillian Hellman's classic "Watch on the Rhine" earned her an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress. In 1946, she was cast as Miss Doshy in Walt Disney's Song of the South, though only billed as Johnny's "Grandmother." Like many of her later roles, she depicted a strongly opinionated matriarchal character, with a sharp wit and tongue to boot. As she said herself in the film, "I'm a stubborn old woman, Uncle Remus!" She has aptly been nicknamed the "Queen of the Dowagers."
Among her most famous motion picture credits are in The Garden of Allah (1936), Sweethearts (1938), The Women (1939), The Thin Man Goes Home (1945), Little Women (1949), and Harriet Craig (1950). Lucile Watson's final appearance on film was in My Forbidden Past (1951), though she also appeared in a few television series between 1952-1954. Lucile retired at the age of 75 in New York, and passed away on June 24, 1962, at the age of 83 from a heart attack. She was interred at Mount Hope Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.
