Jessie Ralph
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jessie Ralph (born Jessie Ralph Chambers, November 5, 1864 – May 30, 1944) was an American stage and screen actress, best known for her matronly roles in many classic motion pictures.
She was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1864. She made her acting debut in 1880, at the age of sixteen. She made it to Broadway, where George M. Cohan cast her in many of his musicals, but she also excelled at dramatic roles. Although she made her Hollywood debut in 1916, in a motion picture career that would eventually span 25 years, she only became a permanent Hollywood actress in 1933. She was nearly 70 at this time, so her roles were limited to matronly roles, but her expertise at stealing scenes captured the imagination of cinema-goers of the time. Her best-known roles are as Greta Garbo's maid in Camille, as W.C. Fields' battle-axe of a mother-in-law in The Bank Dick, as Myrna Loy's supercilious aunt Katherine in After the Thin Man, and as Nurse Peggotty in David Copperfield. She starred in 55 movies altogether, 52 between 1933 and 1941.
Jessie Ralph retired from Hollywood in 1941, after her leg was amputated. She died four years later in her home town of Gloucester at the age of 79. She was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 2.607 |
Birthday | 1864-11-04 |
Place of Birth | Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA |
Also Known As | Jessie Ralph Chambers, Jessie Rolph, Jessie Ralph Patton, |
1940
The Bank Dick
6.4/114
Egbert Sousé becomes an unexpected hero when a bank robber falls over a bench he's occupying. Now considered brave, Egbert is given a job as a bank gu...
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The Bank Dick
1937
Double Wedding
6.5/31
A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process.
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Double Wedding
1919
The Madonna of the Slums
0/0
A rich artist has never completed a master painting because he could not find a model for the face, sees the wife of a man in hard luck begging on the...
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The Madonna of the Slums
1936
Little Lord Fauntleroy
6.9/52
An American boy turns out to be the heir of a wealthy British earl. He is sent to live with the irritable and unsentimental aristocrat, his grandfathe...
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Little Lord Fauntleroy
1936
After the Thin Man
7.3/161
Nick and Nora Charles investigate when Nora's cousin reports her disreputable husband is missing, and find themselves in a mystery involving the shady...
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After the Thin Man
1936
Camille
7/125
Life in 1847 Paris is as spirited as champagne and as unforgiving as the gray morning after. In gambling dens and lavish soirees, men of means exert t...
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Camille
1935
Les Misérables
7.2/49
In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both me...
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Les Misérables
1933
Elmer, the Great
4.3/6
Elmer does not want to leave Gentryville, because Nellie is the one that he loves. Even when Mr. Wade of the Chicago Cubs comes to get him, it is only...
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Elmer, the Great
1935
Captain Blood
7.2/226
Dr. Peter Blood, unjustly convicted of treason and exiled from England, becomes a notorious pirate.
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Captain Blood
1934
Murder at the Vanities
5.4/10
Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading la...
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Murder at the Vanities
1939
Drums Along the Mohawk
6.4/106
Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosper...
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Drums Along the Mohawk
1933
Cocktail Hour
4.75/4
Cynthia Warren, independently wealthy through her ability as an illustrator and poster artist, rebels against the premise that every woman is destined...
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Cocktail Hour
1934
Evelyn Prentice
6.6/27
A criminal lawyer's wife is blackmailed when she is falsely accused of infidelity.
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Evelyn Prentice
1937
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
6/18
A chic American jewel thief falls in love with one of her marks, an English lord.
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The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
1934
One Night of Love
5.4/14
Mary Barrett is an aspiring opera singer who is taken under the wings of a famous operatic maestro, Guilio Monterverdi. After spending endless working...
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One Night of Love
1933
Child of Manhattan
8/3
Paul Vanderkill is extraordinarily wealthy because his grandfather happened to buy farmland in what was to become Midtown Manhattan. The Loveland Danc...
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Child of Manhattan
1934
The Affairs of Cellini
4.75/8
The 16th-century sculptor woos the Duchess of Florence despite the duke.
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The Affairs of Cellini
1941
The Lady from Cheyenne
5.2/3
Fictionalized story of the 1869 adoption of women's suffrage in Wyoming Territory. In the new-founded railroad town of Laraville, Boss Jim Cork hopes...
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The Lady from Cheyenne
1938
Port of Seven Seas
0/0
In the French port of Marseille, a young woman named Madelon is in love with a young sailor, Marius. Discovering she is pregnant after Marius sets out...
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Port of Seven Seas
1939
The Kid From Texas
6.5/2
A loud-mouthed Texas cowpuncher tries his hand at polo finding himself at odds with high society and trying to save a floundering Wild West show.
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The Kid From Texas
1935
Enchanted April
5.4/4
Mrs. Lotty Wilkins is an unhappily wife whom's life husband and romance have departed. In order to possibly salvage some of the missing elements in he...
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Enchanted April
1936
The Unguarded Hour
6.2/4
A blackmailer tries to stop a woman from revealing evidence that could save a condemned man.
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The Unguarded Hour
1936
Bunker Bean
4.6/7
A shy office worker becomes a hero when a fortune teller calls him another Napoleon.
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Bunker Bean
1938
Love Is a Headache
5.7/3
A press agent for a Broadway actress whose career is going downhill attempts to get her some publicity by having her adopt two orphans, without her kn...
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Love Is a Headache
1940
I Want a Divorce
0/0
Comedy about newlyweds wondering if their marriage was a mistake.
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I Want a Divorce
1935
Metropolitan
0/0
Opera prima donna leaves the Metropolitan to form her own company with Tibbett as leading man. She leaves this company too which means Tibbett and com...
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Metropolitan
1933
Ann Carver's Profession
5.5/2
Newlyweds experience marital problems when the wife's highly successful job as an attorney overshadows her husband's stagnant career.
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Ann Carver's Profession
1938
Hold That Kiss
6.5/2
Two young people meet at a wedding and begin dating, each thinking the other is extremely wealthy. Comedy.
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Hold That Kiss
1935
I Found Stella Parish
7/5
A blackmailer preys on an actress who is trying to protect her daughter from her past.
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I Found Stella Parish
1935
David Copperfield
6.516/64
Charles Dickens' timeless tale of an ordinary young man who lives an extraordinary life, filled with people who help and hinder him.
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David Copperfield
1936
Walking on Air
5.8/5
A strong-willed young woman hires a student to impersonate a boorish French count and brings him home to meet her parents.
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Walking on Air
1934
We Live Again
6.5/4
Nekhludoff, a Russian nobleman serving on a jury, discovers that the young girl on trial, Katusha, is someone he once seduced and abandoned and that h...
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We Live Again
1934
Nana
5/4
Young Parisian Nana wards off of a boozed-up military officer at a local restaurant, and fellow diner Gaston Greiner is so impressed with her pluck th...
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Nana
1936
Yellow Dust
4/4
After he's accused of a series of stagecoach robberies, an innocent man has to find the real crooks.
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Yellow Dust
1940
The Blue Bird
5.8/39
An ungrateful girl and her little brother are transported in their dreams by a fairy to a wonderland, tasked with finding the mythical blue bird of ha...
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The Blue Bird
1940
Star Dust
4.7/3
When Hollywood film studios reject her because she's too young, an Arkansas woman sets out to build a career as an actress on her own.
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Star Dust
1935
Paris in Spring
5/1
Afraid of marriage, Simone (Mary Ellis) breaks off her long term engagement with her fiancé Paul de Lille (Tullio Carminati). Paul heads to the top of...
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Paris in Spring
1939
Cafe Society
6/1
A pampered heiress (Madeleine Carroll) elopes with a shipboard reporter (Fred MacMurray) just to get her name in a society column.
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Cafe Society
1939
Four Girls in White
6.3/3
Young Women go through Nursing School together, each with their own motivation for being there. They learn more than how to be a Nurse.
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Four Girls in White
1935
Jalna
4.8/4
A young poet, accompanied by his new bride, returns home to his large family at their Canadian farm.
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Jalna
1939
Mickey the Kid
0/0
A bank robber and his boy make a run for it during winter in a bus full of children.
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Mickey the Kid
1940
I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
6/1
In I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby, Broderick Crawford plays a sentimental gangster who abducts songwriter Johnny Downs and forces him to wri...
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I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
1939
St. Louis Blues
0/0
A Broadway musical comedy star tires of the same old grind and flees the city. She runs into the skipper of a showboat who befriends her, and they mak...
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St. Louis Blues
1935
I Live My Life
6.4/8
A society girl tries to make a go of her marriage to an archaeologist.
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I Live My Life
1935
Vanessa: Her Love Story
6/4
The Victorian wife of a mad baron waits years for a British soldier sent to Egypt.
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Vanessa: Her Love Story
1937
The Good Earth
6.2/66
China, during the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The arranged marriage between Wang Lung, a humble farmer, and O-Lan, a domestic slave, will endure the man...
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The Good Earth
1936
The Garden Murder Case
5.5/12
Detective Philo Vance is in charge of the investigation of several mysterious murders. Things take a turn when he gathers evidence against Major Fenwi...
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The Garden Murder Case
1937
The Romance of Celluloid
7/2
Several behind the scenes aspects of the movie-making business, which results in the enjoyment the movie going public has in going to the theater, are...
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The Romance of Celluloid
1941
They Met in Bombay
7.4/15
A jewel thief and a con artist are rivals in the theft of a valuable diamond and gem necklace in Bombay and as the Japanese Army invades China.
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They Met in Bombay
1936
San Francisco
6.6/69
A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 19...
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San Francisco
1935
Mark of the Vampire
6.1/128
Sir Borotyn, a prominent Prague resident, is discovered murdered in his home, with all indications pointing to a vampire assault. The victim's friend,...
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Mark of the Vampire
1934
Coming Out Party
5/1
In this romance, a lovely young debutante falls in love with a jazz violinist. Her mother wants her to marry a wealthy young man, but the strong-wille...
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Coming Out Party
1940
The Girl from Avenue A
0/0
A tough girl raised in the streets finds that her dialect and manners are helpful as source material for a playwright.
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