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Anna Lee

ACTOR · BORN 1913 · DIED 2004

Anna Lee

Born
2 January 1913, Igtham, Kent, England, UK
Died
14 May 2004
Known for
The Sound of Music (1965), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Bedlam (1946), Gideon's Day (1958)

27 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Nov 2026

Anna Lee (2 January 1913 – 14 May 2004) was an actor best known for The Sound of Music, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Bedlam.

27 Interesting Facts About Anna Lee

Interesting Facts (14)

  1. #001

    Anna Lee was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident and used a wheelchair for more than twenty years.

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  2. #002

    She was the goddaughter of Dame Sybil Thorndike and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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  3. #003

    During World War II, Lee performed on USO tours alongside Jack Benny and others, entertaining troops in North Africa and Europe. General George S. Patton gave her a special medal for her efforts.

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  4. #004

    For Bedlam (1946), Anna darkened her hair so that audiences would take her more seriously, and she kept her hair dark for much of the following few years. One of her costumes was worn by Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939).

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  5. #005

    Between 1949 and 1958 she did no film work, claiming she had been blacklisted by far-right supporters of Senator McCarthy. She found this absurd, especially since she was, in her own words, "an old-fashioned Winston Churchill conservative," and she always praised her old friend John Ford for breaking the blacklist. She appeared in eight of Ford's films.

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  6. #006

    Comedian Jack Hulbert served as Best Man at her first wedding, and Alfred Hitchcock gave her away at her second.

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  7. #007

    The blue-eyed blonde was occasionally a brunette in films. In Seven Sinners (1940), she wore her hair darker because star Marlene Dietrich insisted on no competing blondes in her pictures.

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  8. #008

    She is best remembered by the public for her role as Lila Quartermaine on the soap opera General Hospital (1963).

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  9. #009

    Anna Lee initially trained with Elsie Fogarty at the Royal Albert Central School Hall in London. She later toured with the London Repertory Theatre, where she earned the title "The British Bombshell."

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  10. #010

    In Song Without End (1960), Anna Lee dubbed the voice of Patricia Morison, who played the writer George Sand, because George Cukor — one of the directors who took over the film after Charles Vidor's death — wanted the character to have a harder vocal tone.

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  11. #011

    Anna Lee was a mentor and friend to Leslie Charleson, Anthony Geary and Jacklyn Zeman.

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  12. #012

    The progressive metal band Dream Theater named the character of one of their songs after her.

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  13. #013

    On 18 January 1988, the 4th annual Soap Opera Digest Awards were broadcast, and Anna Lee won the award for Best Supporting Actress - Daytime for her role as Lila Quartermaine on "General Hospital." Her category was presented by her co-stars Ian Buchanan and Finola Hughes.

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  14. #014

    On 30 May 2007, the memoir "Anna Lee: Memoir of a Career on General Hospital and in Film," written and completed with Barbara Roisman Cooper, was published posthumously by McFarland.

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Characters & Cast (1)

  1. #015

    Her former General Hospital (1963) co-star, Jacklyn Zeman resided not too far from Jeanne Cooper, who was Lee's close friend.

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Career & Awards (5)

  1. #016

    She died just one week before she was to receive a Daytime Emmy Award for lifetime achievement. Her actor son, Jeffrey Byron, accepted the award on her behalf at the ceremony in New York.

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  2. #017

    She appeared in two Oscar Best Picture winners: How Green Was My Valley (1941) and The Sound of Music (1965), and in one more nominee: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962).

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  3. #018

    Anna Lee appeared in two films selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry as "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: How Green Was My Valley (1941) and The Sound of Music (1965).

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  4. #019

    Anna Lee was a close friend of Jeanne Cooper. Cooper received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame seven months after Lee.

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  5. #020

    On 21 May 2004, the Lifetime Achievement Award given posthumously to Anna Lee by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was accepted on her behalf by her son Jeffrey Byron at the 31st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards. Ms. Lee's former "General Hospital" co-star Vanessa Marcil hosted the ceremony and paid tribute to Ms. Lee before Mr. Byron's introduction and speech.

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Life & Family (7)

  1. #021

    Amber Tamblyn first played the adopted granddaughter of Lee's character on General Hospital (1963). In the 1950s (long before Tamblyn was born), Tamblyn's father, Russ Tamblyn, was married to Lee's daughter Venetia Stevenson.

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  2. #022

    Anna Lee died on May 14, 2004. Only a few months later, General Hospital (1963) paid tribute to Lee by holding a memorial service for her character.

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  3. #023

    One of three children of an Anglican clergyman at St. Peter's Church in Ightham, Kent, her godmother was the legendary actress Sybil Thorndike.

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  4. #024

    She had two daughters with her first husband, Robert Stevenson. After their divorce in 1944, Anna was granted custody of their younger daughter, Caroline, but Venetia chose to live with her father. Anna had been separated from her daughter for 15 years. They were reunited after appearing together in Jet Over the Atlantic (1959) and The Big Night (1960).

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  5. #025

    From 1990 to 1991, Mrs. Lee's granddaughter Erin Everly was married to Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses, briefly making Axl Rose Mrs. Lee's "grandson-in-law." Mrs. Everly was the inspiration for the Guns N' Roses song "Sweet Child O' Mine" and was the daughter of Mrs. Lee's daughter Venetia Stevenson and Don Everly of The Everly Brothers.

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  6. #026

    During World War II, she volunteered for overseas duty with the USO, entertaining Allied troops in North Africa, Iran and Sicily.

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  7. #027

    Anna Lee appeared alongside a character named Allan Quartermain in King Solomon's Mines (1937), then 46 years later played Lila Quartermaine, who had a son named Alan Quartermaine, on the soap opera General Hospital (1963).

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Sources & editorial notes

Reference databases

  • Wikipedia English Wikipedia article
  • IMDb IMDb name page (biography and trivia)

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