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Margaret Wycherly (26 October 1881 – 6 June 1956) was an English stage and film actress. Wycherly was born Margaret De Wolfe in London, England of American parents, Dr. and Mrs. J. L. De Wolfe. She was married to writer Bayard Veiller (1869–1943) in 1901. They had a son, Anthony Veiller (1903–1965), who also became a writer. She and Veiller divorced in 1922. She was primarily a stage actress, appearing in one silent film. In 1929 at the advent of sound pictures she appeared in her second film, but first talkie, The Thirteenth Chair, based on the 1916 play by her husband in which she... MORE

Margaret Wycherly (26 October 1881 – 6 June 1956) was an English stage and film actress. Wycherly was born Margaret De Wolfe in London, England of American parents, Dr. and Mrs. J. L. De Wolfe. She was married to writer Bayard Veiller (1869–1943) in 1901. They had a son, Anthony Veiller (1903–1965), who also became a writer. She and Veiller divorced in 1922. She was primarily a stage actress, appearing in one silent film. In 1929 at the advent of sound pictures she appeared in her second film, but first talkie, The Thirteenth Chair, based on the 1916 play by her husband in which she had starred. The film was directed by Tod Browning and was in the genre of mystery-old house melodrama. Twelve years later, Wycherley appeared in Sergeant York in 1941. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role of Mother York, though perhaps her best remembered screen role was as "Ma Jarrett", the mother of the psychopathic gangster Cody Jarrett, in White Heat (1949), which famously starred James Cagney. Wycherly starred in several popular Broadway plays, including Tobacco Road, Random Harvest, Liliom, Six Characters in Search of an Author and The Thirteenth Chair LESS