Ellen Corby - 14798

American actress.

After working briefly as a chorus girl in 1932, Corby moved to Hollywood that same year and got a job as a script girl at RKO Studios and Hal Roach Studios, where she often worked on Our Gang comedies. She held that position for the next 12 years and took acting lessons on the side.

Although she had bit parts in more than 30 films in the 1930s and 1940s, including Babes in Toyland (1934) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946), her first credited acting role was in RKO's Cornered (1945) in which she played a maid, followed by an uncredited brief speaking role as a kitchen cook in The Locket (1946). She received an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as a lovelorn aunt in I Remember Mama (1948). Over the next four decades, she worked in film and television, typically portraying maids, secretaries, waitresses, or gossips, often in Westerns.

Corby hit the jackpot when she won the part of Grandma Esther Walton in the made-for-TV film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971), which served as the pilot for The Waltons. Corby was the only adult actor from the original Homecoming pilot to carry her role over to the series, which ran from 1972 to 1981, and resulted in six sequel films. For her work in The Waltons, she gained three Emmy Awards and three more nominations as Best Supporting Actress. She also won a Golden Globe award for best supporting actress in a TV series for The Waltons and was nominated another three times.

Corby left the show on November 10, 1976, after suffering a massive stroke at home, which impaired her speech and severely limited her mobility and function. She returned to the series during the final episode of the 1977Ð78 season, with her character depicted as also recovering from a stroke. Her final role was in A Walton Easter (1997).

This is a very fine black and white photograph (7" x 5") as Grandma Walton, neatly signed and inscribed ("John Street, Love, Ellen Corby") in black ink. In very good condition (her handwriting suggests it was obtained after 1976.)