Aline Laveen MacMahon (May 3, 1899 – October 12, 1991) was an American actress. Her Broadway stage career began under producer Edgar Selwyn in ''The Mirage'' during 1920. She made her screen debut in 1931, and worked extensively in film, theater, and television until her retirement in 1975. She was nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 9th Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performanc ...

for her performance in '' Dragon Seed'' (1944).

Early life

MacMahon was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, the only child of William Marcus MacMahon and Jennie (née Simon) MacMahon. Her father was a telegraph operator, arbitrage broker, and writer/editor in the Munsey publishing company, including their flagship publication, '' Munsey's Magazine''. Aline's parents had married on July 14, 1898, in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...

. Her father died on September 6, 1931. Her mother, an avid bell collector, died in 1984, at age 106. MacMahon first appeared on stage as early as 1905. That year the family moved to Brooklyn from McKeesport, and Aline's mother began training her in the art of

elocution Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone as well as the idea and practice of effective speech and its forms. It stems from the idea that while communication is symbolic, sounds are final and compel ...

. Soon, Aline was performing at local churches and festivals where she recited poems and played the violin. By 1908 she was well known enough to attract the attention of the ''

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle The ''Brooklyn Eagle'' (originally joint name ''The Brooklyn Eagle'' and ''Kings County Democrat'', later ''The Brooklyn Daily Eagle'' before shortening title further to ''Brooklyn Eagle'') was an afternoon daily newspaper published in the city ...

'', which reported "a series of songs and dances by Aline MacMahon" to be performed at St. Jude's Church in Brooklyn. Although she had been earning handsome wages for many years on New York's so-called Strawberry Circuit, MacMahon made her true professional debut in 1914 with a program of readings, recitations and singing at New York's McAlpin Hotel.

Education

MacMahon was raised first in the Pittsburgh suburb of McKeesport, then in Brooklyn, New York. She attended New York's public school 103, then entered Erasmus Hall High School (Brooklyn) in 1912. In 1916 the MacMahon family moved to the upper west side of Manhattan and Aline enrolled in nearby

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

. It was there that MacMahon received a more serious education in acting, enrolling in "Wigs and Cues", the theater program run by the woman who became MacMahon's first great mentor, Minor Latham. By graduation she had appeared in nearly every program the school had mounted during those four years, and found multiple suitors for her talents, including offers from the Provincetown Players, producer / actor Walter Hampden, and the Neighborhood Playhouse.

Career

Aline made her (uncredited) Broadway debut in 1920 as a craps-playing debutante in ''The Mirage''. Her Broadway credits include 24 shows, with many other off-Broadway and regional stage appearances during her career. After traveling to Los Angeles to star in the road company of the Broadway smash ''Once in a Lifetime,'' she was noticed by Warner Brothers director Mervyn LeRoy, and made her film debut in the

Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...

drama '' Five Star Final'' (1931). After signing a long-term contract with Warners, Aline spent the rest of her career splitting time between New York and Hollywood in order to be with her husband, the Manhattan-based architect and city planner, Clarence Stein. In the 1930s and 40s, MacMahon was a critical darling (

Walter Winchell Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and c ...

called her "the very good actress"), often cast as the acerbic comedienne with a heart of gold, or the long-suffering woman unlucky in love. Her biggest professional regret was not getting the starring role of O-Lan in '' The Good Earth'' (1937); the part went to Luise Rainer and won her an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

. According to ''Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors'', MacMahon in her later film acting career "moved into character roles with ease as she became plumper and more motherly looking." In 1950, she served as chairwoman of the Equity Library Theater. She organized productions for community theaters and was active in relief charities.

Personal life

On March 28, 1928, MacMahon and Clarence Stein were married after a long courtship. The pair were devoted to each other, but commuting between coasts was a strain on their marriage. They had three children. As Clarence's health failed in the late 1960s and early '70s, Aline confined herself to working in New York City theatrical productions near to their apartment.

The Birth of Method Acting

In 1922, MacMahon was a member of the Neighborhood Playhouse company in Manhattan, just as Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre visited New York for a legendary tour. Accolades poured in for the MAT's performances, and the executives of the Neighborhood Playhouse made arrangements to charter the first teaching class of the Method in America, which Aline attended with nine others. She took the tenets of the Method very seriously, and was the only member of that inaugural class to achieve popular success, having debuted the technique on stage in the fall of 1923, and as the first practitioner of it on film in 1931. "I was the first," she said in 1959, "in the first group to be exposed to what has become the Method. Out of that summer 923has developed everything that the Method actors are doing." She was a pioneering Method actor in the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...

Blacklisted

During the 1950s, MacMahon was

blacklisted Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list; if people are on a blacklist, then they are considere ...

as a Communist sympathizer. Her name appeared in the notorious Communist watchlist pamphlet, '' Red Channels''. For years, the FBI had been surveilling her and her husband, including the couple's frequent international travel (for example, they sailed around the world in 1935–1936). ''Red Channels'' targeted her for being a council member of Actors' Equity, the theatrical labor union. She had also supported the 1948 presidential campaign of Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace, and she was honorary vice-president of the League of Women Shoppers: a consumer advocacy group described as "Communist-inspired and therefore Communist-dominated and controlled", with the intent "to create mass feminine support in labor disputes." Because MacMahon was never called before the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative United States Congressional committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 19 ...

(HUAC), she was more on the "graylist" than blacklist. However, it still brought her film acting career to an end. From 1955 to 1960, she could only get jobs in "B" movies, and by the time the blacklist eased in the 1960s, there was no movie work for her.

Death

On October 12, 1991, Aline MacMahon died of pneumonia in New York City. She was 92.

Papers

The New York Public Library has a collection of MacMahon's papers that document various aspects of her life. They are housed in the library's Billy Rose Theatre Division. The first full-length biography of her, ''Aline MacMahon: Hollywood, the Blacklist, and the Birth of Method Acting'', was published in 2022 by University Press of Kentucky.

Partial filmography

*'' Five Star Final'' (1931) – Miss Taylor *'' The Heart of New York'' (1932) – Bessie, the Neighbor *'' The Mouthpiece'' (1932) – Miss Hickey, Day's Secretary *'' Week-End Marriage'' (1932) – Agnes Davis *'' Life Begins'' (1932) – Miss Bowers *'' Once in a Lifetime'' (1932) – May Daniels *'' One Way Passage'' (1932) – Betty *'' Silver Dollar'' (1932) – Sarah Martin *''

Gold Diggers of 1933 ''Gold Diggers of 1933'' is an American Pre-Code Hollywood, pre-Code musical film directed by Mervyn LeRoy with songs by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics). The film's numbers were staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. It starr ...

'' (1933) – Trixie Lorraine *'' The Life of Jimmy Dolan'' (1933) – Mrs. Moore aka Auntie *'' Heroes for Sale'' (1933) – Mary *'' The World Changes'' (1933) – Anna Nordholm *''

Heat Lightning Heat lightning (not to be confused with dry thunderstorms, which are also often called dry lightning) is a misnomer used for the faint flashes of lightning on the horizon or other clouds from distant thunderstorm A thunderstorm ...

'' (1934) – Olga (first leading role) *'' The Merry Frinks'' (1934) – Hattie 'Mom' Frink *'' Side Streets'' (1934) – Bertha Krasnoff *'' Big Hearted Herbert'' (1934) – Elizabeth *'' Babbitt'' (1934) – Myra Babbitt *'' While the Patient Slept'' (1935) – Sarah Keate *'' Mary Jane's Pa'' (1935) – Ellen Preston *''

I Live My Life ''I Live My Life'' is a 1935 American comedy-drama film starring Joan Crawford, Brian Aherne and Frank Morgan. It is based on the story "Claustrophobia" by A. Carter Goodloe. Plot Bored socialite Kay Bentley travels to Greece on her wealthy f ...

'' (1935) – Betty Collins *'' Kind Lady'' (1935) – Mary Herries *'' Ah, Wilderness!'' (1935) – Aunt Lily *'' When You're in Love'' (1937) – Marianne Woods *'' Back Door to Heaven'' (1939) – Miss Williams *'' Out of the Fog'' (1941) – Florence Goodwin *'' The Lady is Willing'' (1942) – Buddy *'' Tish'' (1942) – Lizzie Wilkins *'' Stage Door Canteen'' (1943) – Aline MacMahon *''Seeds of Freedom'' (1943) – Odessa Citizen *'' Reward Unlimited'' (1944, short) – Mrs. Scott *'' Dragon Seed'' (1944) – Ling Tan's Wife *'' Guest in the House'' (1944) – Aunt Martha *'' The Mighty McGurk'' (1947) – Mamie Steeple *'' The Search'' (1948) – Mrs. Deborah R. Murray *'' Roseanna McCoy'' (1949) – Sarie McCoy *'' The Flame and the Arrow'' (1950) – Nonna Bartoli *'' The Eddie Cantor Story'' (1953) – Grandma Esther *'' The Man from Laramie'' (1955) – Kate Canaday *'' Cimarron'' (1960) – Mrs. Mavis Pegler *'' The Young Doctors'' (1961) – Dr. Lucy Grainger *'' Diamond Head'' (1963) – Kapiolani Kahana *'' I Could Go On Singing'' (1963) – Ida *'' All the Way Home'' (1963) – Aunt Hannah *''For the Use of the Hall'' (1975, TV) - Bess

References

Census and other data

* The 1910 United States Federal Census for Brooklyn, New York, April 16, 1910, Enumeration District 1409, Sheet 5. * The 1920 United States Federal Census for Manhattan Assembly District 13, January 25, 1920, Enumeration District 943, Sheet 9A. * U.S. Passport Applications 1795–1925, Roll 1533-6376-6749, March 19–21, 1921 (Ancestry.com)

External links

* * * * * *
Aline MacMahon (1899-1991)
includes MacMahon memorabilia: photographs, book references, etc.
Aline MacMahon papers, 1899-1989
held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division,

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, in the Lincoln Center complex on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, New York City. Situated between the Metropolitan O ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macmahon, Aline 1899 births 1991 deaths 20th-century American actresses American film actresses American stage actresses American people of Scotch-Irish descent American people of Russian-Jewish descent Barnard College alumni Erasmus Hall High School alumni Deaths from pneumonia in New York (state) Actresses from Brooklyn People from McKeesport, Pennsylvania Jewish American actresses New York (state) Democrats California Democrats Pennsylvania Democrats Method actors