Nydia Westman
1902 - 1970Nydia Eileen Westman (February 19, 1902 – May 23, 1970) was an American actress and singer of stage, screen and television.
Westman's parents, Theodore and Lily (Wren) Westman were active in vaudeville in her native New York City. In addition to their working together on stage, her mother was a writer and her father was a composer. She attended the Professional Children's School.
Her sisters, Lolita and Neville were actresses, and her brother, Theodore (d. November 20, 1927), was an actor and playwright.
Westman's career ranged from episodic appearances on TV series such as That Girl and Dragnet and uncredited bit roles in movies to appearances in groundbreaking films (such as Craig's Wife, which starred Rosalind Russell, and the first film version of Little Women.
Westman's screen debut came in Strange Justice (1922). She appeared in 31 films in the 1930s.
She appeared as the housekeeper Mrs. Featherstone in the 1962–1963 ABC series, Going My Way, which starred Gene Kelly and Leo G. Carroll as Roman Catholic priests in New York City.
Westman's first Broadway play was Pigs (1924); her last was Midgie Purvis (1961).
She broke ground on stage, debuting the role of Nell off-Broadway in Samuel Beckett's Endgame, for which she won one of the first Obie awards.
Westman was married to Robert Sparks, a producer, from 1930 until 1937; they had a daughter, actress Kate Williamson, born on September 19, 1931.
Westman died of cancer at the age of sixty-eight in Burbank, California.
Bloomer Girl
Alex Segal
Barbara Cook, Keith Andes
In 1956, BLOOMER GIRL was presented in a live television production starring the magnificent Barbara Cook, whose star was then on the rise, with leading roles in CANDIDE and THE MUSIC MAN still in her future. A solid success when it opened on Broadway in 1944, BLOOMER GIRL boasts a glorious score by the legendary team of Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg (THE WIZARD OF OZ). The book by Fred Saidy is set at the brink of the Civil War and addresses issues of women's equality (priorities were the right to vote and to wear bloomers, a liberating alternative to hoop skirts) and racial equality.
Bloomer Girl
The Ghost & Mr. Chicken
Alan Rafkin
Don Knotts, Joan Staley
Luther Heggs, a typesetter for the town newspaper, pitches an idea for a story about a local haunted house where a famous murder/suicide occurred 20 years earlier. After the editor assigns Luther to spend one night alone in the mansion, Heggs has a number of supernatural encounters and writes a front page story that makes him a hometown hero...until the nephew of the deceased sues him for libel.
The Ghost & Mr. Chicken
The Cat and the Canary
Elliott Nugent
Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard
Ten years after the death of millionaire Cyrus Norman, his will is to be read out to his six relatives, including Joyce Norman and Wally Campbell. Organized by Norman's lawyer, Crosby, the six meet at Norman's eerie New Orleans Gothic mansion. During the reading, the superstitious housekeeper declares that someone will be dead by midnight. Wally fears for Joyce when she is declared the sole inheritor, but all are alarmed when Crosby turns up dead.
The Cat and the Canary
Little Women
George Cukor
Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett
Little Women is a coming-of-age drama tracing the lives of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. During the American Civil War, the girls father is away serving as a minister to the troops. The family, headed by their beloved Marmee, must struggle to make ends meet, with the help of their kind and wealthy neighbor, Mr. Laurence, and his high spirited grandson Laurie.
Little Women
The Late George Apley
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Ronald Colman, Peggy Cummins
George and Catherine Apley of Boston lead a proper life in the proper social circle, as did the Apleys before them. When grown daughter Eleanor falls in love with Howard (from New York!), and son John with Myrtle (from Worcester!), the ordered life of the Apley home on Beacon Street is threatened, as is the hoped-for union of John and Apley-cousin Agnes.
The Late George Apley
When Tomorrow Comes
John M. Stahl
Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer
Romance and heartbreak walk hand-in-hand when Philip Chagal accidentally meets Helen Lawrence in a restaurant where she is a waitress. Unhappily married to a woman who suffers from mental illness, he is attracted to her and they make a date to go sailing, arriving at Philip's country home just as a storm is breaking. Helen learns who he is for the first time, a celebrated-and-famous concert pianist and, falling in love with him, decides to leave before matters go further. A hurricane hits and their car is crippled by a falling tree. Rising water forces then to seek shelter in the choir loft of a church, where they spend the night.
When Tomorrow Comes
Pennies from Heaven
Norman Z. McLeod
Bing Crosby, Madge Evans
Larry Poole, in prison on a false charge, promises an inmate that when he gets out he will look up and help out a family. The family turns out to be a young girl, Patsy Smith, and her elderly grandfather who need lots of help. This delays Larry from following his dream and going to Venice and becoming a gondolier. Instead, he becomes a street singer and, while singing in the street, meets a pretty welfare worker, Susan Sprague. She takes a dim view of Patsy's welfare under the guardianship of Larry and her grandfather and starts proceedings to have Patsy placed in an orphanage.
Pennies from Heaven
The Remarkable Andrew
Stuart Heisler
Brian Donlevy, William Holden
When Andrew Long, hyper-efficient small town accountant, finds a $1240 discrepancy in the city budget, his superiors try to explain it away. When he insists on pursuing the matter, he's in danger of being blamed himself. In his trouble, the spirit of Andrew Jackson, whom he idolizes, visits him, and in turn, summons much high-powered talent from American history...which only Andrew can see.
The Remarkable Andrew
Forty Little Mothers
Busby Berkeley
Eddie Cantor, Bonita Granville
An out-of-work professor gets a break from an old college buddy to teach at an exclusive girl's school. But events conspire against him: he finds an abandoned child which he takes under his wing, despite the school's rules against teachers having a family; and the girls in the school resent his replacing a handsome and popular teacher, and do everything in their power to get him fired.
Forty Little Mothers
They All Kissed the Bride
Alexander Hall
Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas
Margaret Drew runs her trucking company single-mindedly, if not ruthlessly. The only thorn in her side is writer Michael Holmes who is writing a book on some of her tough ways. With no time for men, the effect an attractive stranger has on her at her sister's wedding is unnerving. When it turns out this is the hated writer, she starts seriously to lose her bearings. Surely it can't become Maggie and Mike?
They All Kissed the Bride
