'Though she was famed in the world of screen and television for her award-winning performances in Rebecca and Macbeth, Dame Judith Anderson shines forth most brilliantly on the pages of theatrical history for her classical style of acting in an almost eight-decade stage career. Her acting life offered a wide variety of stage roles not only in the development of female leads but also in an expansive range of theatrical genres, from plays of antiquity to contemporary works - in sharp contrast to Hollywood's more restricted typecasting of her as suspicious or sinister characters, usually in secondary or supporting roles. She favored roles that allowed her to achieve the most "musical" interpretation of the language as she developed her characterizations, and she preferred works that engaged audiences in elevated contemplation or joyful appreciation of life. During the final decades of her life, she regretted the "ugliness and tawdriness" on stage and screen that deprived audiences of a meaningful theatrical or film experience.' (Source: The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, 2001)
