Born Donella Lightfoot Donaldson, June 10, 1910, in Oak Park, IL; died of abdominal cancer, December 24, 1994, in La Crosse, WI. Actress. Julie Haydon wasthe original Laura Wingfield in the first production of Tennessee William'sThe Glass Menagerie in 1945. She began her stage career touring in Mrs. Bumpstead Leigh in the late 1920s. In 1931 she portrayed Ophelia in a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Hollywood Playhouse. Haydon also appeared in films, including Age of Innocence with Irene Dunne, The Scoundrel with Noel Coward, and A Family Affair--the first of the "Andy Hardy" films--with Mickey Rooney. Haydon married drama critic George Jean Nathan in 1955, and appeared incommunity and college theater after his death in 1958. For ten years she served as actress in residence at the College of St. Teresa, in Winona, Minnesota. In 1980, she returned to Broadway in the role of Mrs. Wingfield, Laura's mother, in a revival of The Glass Menagerie.
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