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Nora Cecil (September 20, 1878 – May 1, 1951) was a British-American character actress whose 30-year career spanned both the silent and sound film eras. Cecil's career began on the stage, where she appeared in a single Broadway production, The Sleeping Beauty and the Beast, which ran for more than 240 performances at the Broadway Theatre in 1901-02. (A 1930 newspaper article says that Cecil "made her debut, three decades ago, on the London stage.")
Cecil appeared in well over 100 feature films and film shorts.
In 1915, she moved from the stage into films, her first appearance being in a starring role in The Arrival of Perpetua, directed by Émile Chautard. She often played "thin-lipped, stern-visaged dowagers and forbidding mothers-in-law" and "welfare workers, landladies, schoolmistresses and maiden aunts".
One of the most significant roles was in the W.C. Fields vehicle, The Old Fashioned Way in 1934. Some of the other notable films in which Cecil appeared include: Ernst Lubitsch's historical romance, The Merry Widow, starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald; the 1939 version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, starring Mickey Rooney; the John Ford classic, Stagecoach, with John Wayne.
Her final acting performance was in a featured role in Mourning Becomes Electra in 1947, starring Rosalind Russell.
Movies
The Thin Man Goes Home
Miss Peavy
Mixed Nuts
Mrs. Twitchett
The Devil Dancer
Julia
Seven Days Leave
Amelia Twymley
Laughing Boy
Schoolteacher
Mr. Boggs Steps Out
Widow Peddie
Girl Grief
Miss Tuttle, Principal
College Holiday
Miss Elkins (uncredited)
Little Miss Nobody
Mrs. Robinson
Car 99
Granny Adams
Search for Beauty
Miss Pettigrew
Asleep in the Feet
Female Police Officer
What a Life
Miss Eggleston
Chip of the Flying U
Dr. Cecil Grantham
Sensation Seekers
Mrs. Lodge
Peg o' My Heart
Smythe (maid)
One-Horse Farmers
Subway Passenger (uncredited)
Opened by Mistake
Head Nurse
The Poor Little Rich Girl
One of Gwendolyn's Teachers (uncredited)
Easy Living
Miss Swerf
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Hospital Nurse (uncredited)
Slightly Static
Beauty Products Announcer (uncredited)
Going Hollywood
Briarcroft's Teacher
Way Down East
Townswoman at Party
The Bank Dick
Lompoc Ladies Auxiliary (uncredited)
Stage Mother
Miss Gilford, Kitty's Music Store Boss
King of the Jungle
Spinster in park (uncredited)
Only Saps Work
Mrs. Partridge
Everything’s Rosie
Hotel Proprietress
Stagecoach
Boone's Landlady (uncredited)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mrs. Shackleford (uncredited)
The Story of Alexander Graham Bell
Miss Jenkins
Union Pacific
Snoring Woman on Train (uncredited)
Fury
Albert's Mother (uncredited)
Fast Workers
Tall Window-Shopper (Uncredited)
International Settlement
English Woman
Design for Living
Tom's Secretary (uncredited)
Amateur Daddy
Saleslady
Tillie Wakes Up
Gossip in Ice Cream Parlor / Woman Having Picture Taken
Timothy's Quest
Townswoman
A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob
Charwoman
Two in the Dark
Mrs. Potter, Landlady
Wreckety Wrecks
Miss Winterbottom
Lucky Partners
Women's Club President
Little Men
Head of Orphanage
Young People
Righteous Old Lady
Champagne Waltz
Train Passenger
Nothing Sacred
Schoolteacher (uncredited)
Meet the Baron
Professor Winterbottom (uncredited)
The Big Broadcast of 1937
Home Economics Woman
The Merry Widow
Animal Woman (uncredited)
The Old-Fashioned Way
Mrs. Wendelschaffer
Doctor Bull
Aunt Emily Banning
I Married a Witch
Harriet Wooley (uncredited)
Three Girls About Town
Casket Customer
Mr. Bride
Mrs. Cecil
The Social Secretary
Spinster (uncredited)
Footlights and Fools
(uncredited)
Apache Trail
Passenger (uncredited)
The Wife Takes a Flyer
Miss Updike
The Ruling Voice
Malcom's Nurse (uncredited)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl
Ship's Matron (uncredited)
Upperworld
The Streams' Housekeeper (uncredited)
A Model Husband
Mrs Gossip
Little Accident
Dr. Zernecke
Obliging Young Lady
Miss Hollyrod - Bird Lover (uncredited)
Hell's Angels
Helen's Maid (uncredited)
Memories and Melodies
Customer (uncredited)
Gold Diggers of 1935
Housekeeper (uncredited)
Young Bride
Landlady (uncredited)
Street Scene
Alice Simpson - Welfare Worker
Pack Up Your Troubles
Welfare Association Officer (uncredited)
Girls
Matron Helen Hunt
Borrowing Trouble
Dressmaker
Chained
Edith (uncredited)
You're Telling Me!
Mrs. Price
The Baby Cyclone
Mrs. Crandall
The Spectacle Maker
Duchess
The Mighty Treve
Old Maid at Dog Show
The Cavalier
Prunella
The Big Parade of Comedy
Actress in 'Hollywood Party' (archive footage) (uncredited)
Midnight Faces
Mrs. Hart
Bachelor Bait
Mrs. Trutmanner (uncredited)
Millie
Helen and Angie's Landlady (uncredited)
Blossoms On Broadway
Leader of Committee (uncredited)
Two Sisters from Boston
Mrs. Mulberry - Recital Guest (uncredited)
Dancing Pirate
Landlady (uncredited)
The Missing Lady
Miss Millie
Let's Make a Million
Too Many Crooks
(uncredited)
Collegiate
Miss Curtiss
His Majesty, Bunker Bean
Countess Casanova
Seven Footprints to Satan
Old Witch
The Wild Girl
Undetermined Role (uncredited)
The Deadwood Coach
Matilda Shields - in play
The Silent Rider
Mrs. Randall
The Demi-Bride
School Teacher
A Royal Romance
Miss McPherson
Night Must Fall
Nature in the Wrong
Muriel's mother
A Trick of Hearts
The Mayor
Arrowsmith
Nurse (uncredited)
Footfalls
Partners in Crime
Housekeeper
The Unknown Guest
Martha Williams
American Buds
Emily
The Daughter Pays
She Asked for It
Elderly lady (uncredited)
Hot Saturday
Gossip on Telephone (Uncredited)
The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
Some Like It Hot
Mrs. Beckett (uncredited)
Night of Mystery
Big Town
Miss Lovelace (uncredited)
Three Smart Boys
Miss Witherspoon, Superintendent
Under Your Spell
School Teacher (uncredited)
Manslaughter
Lydia's Chaperone (uncredited)
Lady on a Train
East Lynne
Charity Bazaar Committee
Mourning Becomes Electra
Louisa Ames
The Fortune Hunter
Betty Carpenter
The Sea of Grass
Mrs. Ryan - Nurse (uncredited)