# 28942
[ANDERSON, Frances Margaret (Judith), Dame, 1897–1992]; Photographer unknown
Portrait of actors Judith Anderson and Leon Gordon during their 1927 Australian tour.
$350.00 AUD
[Melbourne? : s.n., 1927]. Sepia tone gelatin silver print, 155 x 205 mm, on heavy stock; no photographer’s imprint; verso blank; superb condition.
Adelaide-born Judith Anderson, who was to become one of the greatest ever Australian stage and screen actors, had arrived in Hollywood with her mother in 1918, with a letter of introduction to Cecil B. DeMille. However, her early success in America was to be achieved not in the motion picture industry (her first screen role would not be until 1933) but on the Broadway stage. In 1927 promoter J. C. Williamson brought Judith Anderson – who by this time was established as a star of American theatre – back to Australia to star in three plays with English actor, playwright and director Leon Gordon: Tea for Three, The Green Hat and Cobra. The present photograph – unrecorded in Australian collections – was taken as a promotional photograph during Anderson and Gordon’s tour that year.
Read the extraordinary biography of the great Australian actor Dame Judith Anderson by Desley Deacon on ADB online.