One of the great ladies of the American Theater, Florence Eldridge is best known for her legendary interpretation of “Mary Tyrone” in Jose Quintero's 1956 production of “Long Day's Journey Into Night.” In this famous Circle in the Square production, Florence Eldridge shared the stage with her late husband, Fredric March, with whom she collaborated on a host of equally memorable Broadway occasions - most notably “The American Way” (1939), “Hope for a Harvest” (1941), “The Skin of Our Teeth” (1942), “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” (1950), “Enemy of the People” (1951), and “Autumn Garden” (1951). Although primarily a stage actress, Florence Eldridge made several movies in Hollywood in the late twenties and early thirties - The Studio Murder Mystery (1929), Charming Sinners (1929), The Story of Temple Drake (1933), A Modern Hero (1934), Les Miserables (1935), among others. Her finest film performance in the thirties was her portrait of Elizabeth Tudor - opposite Katharine Hepburn's “Mary of Scotland” in John Ford's 1936 adaptation of Maxwell Anderson's play. Possibly her greatest film performances, however, came in two 1948 Universal prestige productions, both directed by Michael Gordon and starring Fredric March: Another Part of the Forest and Act of Murder.
