Janet Beecher

The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Von Meysenburg,^[1] Beecher was born in Jefferson City, Missouri.^[2] Her sister was actress Olive Wyndham.^[3] The sisters were related to Harriet Beecher Stowe on their mother's side.^[4]

Her father's work as a vice-consul for Germany led to her growing up in Chicago.^[5]

Beecher was a supporting player and lead on the Broadway stage between the 1900s and 1940s. Her Broadway debut came in The Education of Mr. Pipp (1905).^[6] Her final Broadway play was The Late George Apley (1944).^[5] Other notable plays she appeared in included The Lottery Man (1909), The Concert (1910), The Purple Road (1913), Fair and Warmer (1915), The Woman in Room 13 (1919), Call the Doctor (1920), A Bill of Divorcement (1921),^[7] The Love Child (1922), A Kiss in a Taxi (1925), and Courage (1928).

Between 1915 and 1943, she appeared in nearly fifty motion pictures. She remains perhaps best-remembered as a character actress during Hollywood's golden age, often seen in roles as "firm but compassionate matriarchs".^[8] She was known for her roles as Ginger Rogers' mother in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), Tyrone Power's mother in the adventure film The Mark of Zorro (1940), and Henry Fonda's mother in Preston Sturges' screwball comedy The Lady Eve (1941). She retired from film business in 1943, but managed to play a role in the television series Lux Video Theatre in 1952.

Beecher was married twice: first to Harry R. Guggenheimer and then to Richard H. Hoffman. She had one child, a son named Richard, by her second marriage.^{[9][10][11][12]}

On August 7, 1955, Beecher died at her sister's home in Washington, Connecticut, at age 70.^[13]