May Robson (April 19, 1858 - October 20, 1942) was an Australian-born actress and playwright.

A major stage actress of the late 19th and early 20th century, Robson is best known today for the dozens of 1930's motion pictures she appeared in when she was well into her seventies usually playing cross old ladies with hearts of gold. Born Mary Jeannette Robinson in Melbourne, Australia, she starred in the movie version of the play she wrote, A Night Out, in 1915.

Film Work

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She made several silent films, then successfully transitioned to talkies. She made 45 films during the 1930s, taking such roles as The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1933 film), Countess Vronsky in Anna Karenina, Aunt Elizabeth in Bringing Up Baby, Aunt Polly in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and was at her sharp-tongued best as Granny in A Star is Born (1937 film).

Generally a featured actress in films, the seventyish Robson also starred in over a dozen during this period and in 1933 she was nominated at age 75 for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Lady for a Day. Of all actors ever nominated for Academy Awards, Robson has the earliest birthdate and for many years held the record for the oldest performer ever nominated for an Oscar.

Among her other starring roles was 1931's The She Wolf, cast as a miserly millionaire businesswoman, apparently a roman a clef of Hetty Green. She also starred in the final segment of the episodic classic If I Had A Million (1933) as a defeated old ladies home resident who gets a new lease on life that received much praise.

Miss Robson was top-billed as late as 1940, starring in Granny Get Your Gun at age 82. Her last film was 1942's Joan of Paris.

She died at the age of 84 of natural causes, still making movies in her final year, and was buried in Flushing Cemetery, in Queens, New York city.

1858 births | 1942 deaths | Entertainers who died in their 80s | Best Actress Academy Award nominees | Australian film actors | People from Melbourne