Connie Gilchrist gives mothers, housekeepers and neighbours a robust voice, often with a Brooklyn inflection. We like the warmth and comic timing she brings to familiar parts, while wishing the work asked more of her.
Fi1m perspective
The crockery jumps whenever a train passes the Finney house in A Letter to Three Wives (1949). Connie Gilchrist is Ruby Finney, mother to Linda Darnell's Lora Mae, who has decided to marry the owner of the department store where she works. Gilchrist's robust delivery suits a household accustomed to making itself heard. She makes Ruby feel at home there, which matters in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's story of a daughter determined to get away.
We laughed at the first train and found the joke harder to enjoy when Darnell carried on with her lipstick as the house shook. Cinematographer Arthur Charles Miller holds on her face, letting us see how thoroughly Lora Mae has learnt to endure the place. This is Darnell's moment, and Gilchrist's contribution should not be mistaken for the film's main achievement. But her presence helps the home feel inhabited, not simply supplied for a leading character to dislike.
Her film work began with Hullabaloo (1940), following an MGM contract in 1939, and settled into a steady succession of supporting roles through the 1940s and 1950s. Mothers, cooks, housekeepers and neighbours recur; the limitation is how often a part needs her chiefly to establish a household. Her comic timing and warmth are especially useful in those jobs. In Auntie Mame (1958), she plays Norah Muldoon, the loyal Irish housekeeper, another part that puts her at the service of somebody else's larger story.
The part that offered more continuity was Purity Pinker, the innkeeper of Long John Silver (1954), alongside Robert Newton. Gilchrist returned to her in the associated television series from 1957 to 1959, carrying that earthy manner from film to television. It is a useful reminder that the familiar supporting presence could also be a recurring attraction. For a first encounter, choose A Letter to Three Wives, and pay attention to the household as well as the courtship.
Biography
Connie Gilchrist, also credited as Rose Constance Gilchrist, was an American actress who worked in theatre, film and television. Born Rose Constance Gilchrist in Brooklyn, New York, she made her stage debut in London in 1917 and later appeared on Broadway. Her mother, Martha Daniels, was an actress.
She signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1939 and made her film debut in 1940, going on to appear in dozens of films until 1969. Among her credits are A Letter to Three Wives (1949) as Mrs. Ruby Finney, Little Women (1949) as Mrs. Kirke, Some Came Running (1958) and Auntie Mame (1958) as Norah Muldoon. She also had recurring television roles, including Purity Pinker in The Adventures of Long John Silver.
Gilchrist was married to Edwin O'Hanlon from 1922 until his death in 1983; they had one child. She died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on 3 March 1985.
