Anna Chappell

Chappell was born Anna Oksanen^[1][2] in 1925 to Finnish parents Carl and Aino Oksanen.^[1][2] Although born in Finland, Chappell relocated to Toronto, Canada in her early childhood.^[3] Both her parents were actors.^[1] Chappell was raised in Toronto, where she became interested in theater at a young age.^[3] As a child, she sang with the Canadian Navy entertainment corps.^[1]

She met her husband, American musician Harry Chappell, while working as a singer.^[4] The couple married in Binghamton, New York in 1946,^[5] and relocated to Shreveport, Louisiana in the mid-1950s; there, Chappell became active in local theater.^[4] She appeared as Lady Thiang in a production of The King and I, which toured in Corning, New York in 1959.^[6] In 1970, Chappell earned critical acclaim^[7] for her performance in Mame at the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse in Shreveport.^[8] For her performance, she was awarded a Best Actress award from The Shreveport Times.^[9]

Chappell's husband, Harry, who ran a music store in Shreveport, died on March 31, 1981.^[10] In 1983, she starred as Mme. Danzard in a production of My Sister in this House at the Kennedy Center, directed by Robert Buseick.^[3] The same year, she made her feature film debut in the slasher film Mountaintop Motel Massacre, playing an unhinged woman who begins murdering guests in the hotel she operates.^[11] Terry Lawson of the Dayton Daily News praised her performance as being handled with "a comic intensity."^[11] She later had a supporting role in Robert Mulligan's drama film The Man in the Moon (1991).^[12]

In the spring of 2005, Chappell relocated from Shreveport to live with her daughter in Appleton, Wisconsin.^[2][13] She died two months later in Appleton on July 31, 2005.^[2][3] A memorial service for Chappell was arranged in Shreveport.^[2][3]

• The King and I (1959)^[6]
• Peter Pan (1960)^[15]
• Mame (1970)