Acting
Community Rating
6.6
TMDB estimate
Born
November 18, 1863
Died
July 24, 1950 (age 86)
Born in
Paddington, London, England, UK
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Zeffie Agnes Lydia Tilbury (November 20, 1863 – July 24, 1950) was an English actress. Tilbury was known first on the London stage and on Broadway in New York City. In 1881, she debuted on stage in Nine Points of the Law at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, England. She is today best known for playing wise or evil older characters in films, such as the distinguished lady gambler at dinner with Garbo in The Single Standard, as the pitiful Grandma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath and Grandma Lester in Tobacco Road. She appeared in over 70 films. Her earliest surviving silent film is the Valentino / Nazimova 1921 production of Camille. Tilbury is probably best remembered as the old lady who is befriended by Spanky and his friends on her birthday and, as a result, is transformed from a lonely, disagreeable recluse to a happy and loving carefree soul in the 1936 Hal Roach Our Gang comedy Second Childhood. In the same year she also portrayed the Gypsy Queen in the Laurel and Hardy film The Bohemian Girl. Tilbury was married twice. First to Arthur Frederick Lewis in June, 1887, and later to L. E. Woodthorpe, who died on April 8, 1915. She died in Los Angeles, California in 1950 at the age of 86.

MGM Parade
as Self
1955

Flying with Music
as Fortune Teller
1942

Sheriff of Tombstone
as Granny Carson
1941

Tobacco Road
as Grandma Lester
1941

She Couldn't Say No
as Ma Hawkins
1940

Comin' Round the Mountain
as Granny Stokes
1940

The Grapes of Wrath
as Grandma Joad
1940

Emergency Squad
as Mrs. Cobb
1940

The Earl of Chicago
as Miss Nana (uncredited)
1940

Balalaika
as Natalya Petrovna
1939

Lady of the Tropics
as Woman Congratulating Manon
1939

Tell No Tales
as Miss Mary
1939

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell
as Mrs. Sanders
1939

Boy Trouble
as Mrs. Jepson
1939

Arrest Bulldog Drummond
as Aunt Meg
1938

Marie Antoinette
as Dowager at Birth of Dauphin (uncredited)
1938

Woman Against Woman
as Grandma
1938

Kidnapped
as Old Woman
1938

Hunted Men
as Flower Woman
1938

Bulldog Drummond's Peril
as Mrs. Weevens
1938