Edith Atwater (April 22, 1911 – March 14, 1986) was an American stage, film, and television actress.
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Early years
Atwater was born on April 22, 1922, in Chicago. She attended the Faulkner School in Chicago and the Holmquist boarding school in New Hope, Pennsylvania, participating in school plays at the latter. She gained a year of additional study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She was trained at the American Laboratory Theatre, after which she debuted when she was 18 years old.
Career
Atwater performed for a year with the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and acted with other stock theater companies before she appeared on Broadway. She made her Broadway debut in 1931 in Springtime for Henry. In 1939, she starred in The Man Who Came to Dinner.
Her film career included roles in The Body Snatcher (1945), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), It Happened at the World's Fair (1963), Strait-Jacket (1964), Strange Bedfellows (1965), True Grit (1969), The Love Machine (1971), Die Sister, Die! (1972), Mackintosh and T.J. (1975), and Family Plot (1976).
From 1964 to 1965, Atwater appeared in several episodes of the television series Peyton Place in the role of Grace Morton, wife of Dr. Robert Morton, who was played by her real-life husband Kent Smith. During the 1966–1967 television season, she appeared in the series Love on a Rooftop. She was also a regular on the television series Kaz during the 1978–1979 season. Her other television work included appearances on The Rockford Files, Hazel, Knots Landing, and numerous other series.
Atwater's work on Broadway included performances in Flahooley (1951), King Lear (1950), Metropole (1949), The Gentleman From Athens (1947), Parlor Story (1947), State of the Union (1945), R.U.R. (1942), Broken Journey (1942), Johnny on a Spot (1942), Retreat to Pleasure (1940), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939), Susan and God (1937), The Masque of Kings (1937), The Country Wife (1936), This Our House (1935), Brittle Heaven (1934), Are You Decent (1934), and Springtime for Henry (1931).
Atwater was a member of the governing board of Actors' Equity Association.
Personal life and death
On November 15, 1941, in New York, Atwater married actor Hugh Marlowe; they divorced in 1946. She married Joseph Allen in 1951, and they were divorced in 1953. She was married to actor Kent Smith from 1962 until his death in 1985. She died of cancer in 1986 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at age 74. She had no children.
Legacy
Atwater's likeness was drawn in caricature by Alex Gard for Sardi's, the theatre-district restaurant in New York City. The picture is now part of the collection of the New York Public Library.
