Edna
Best

Biography

Making her first stage appearance at age 17, British actress Edna Best scored a substantial hit in the original 1926 staging of The Constant Nymph. Her most frequent stage co-star was Herbert Marshall, to whom she was married from 1928 until 1940; their daughter Sarah Marshall became an actress herself in the 1950s. Ms. Best's New York stage triumphs included the starring roles in Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion and Maugham's Jane. Infrequently seen in films, Edna Best's most memorable movie assignment included the mother of kidnap victim Nova Pilbeam in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and the wife of prodigal violinist Leslie Howard in Intermezzo (1939).