The Watched Pot (alternative title The Mistress of Briony) is a romantic comedy play by Saki and Charles Maude published in 1924. The play, all three acts of which are set in the fictional English country house of Briony Manor, revolves around the search for a suitable bride for young Trevor Bavvel, who is the sole heir to the estate. The present owner is the widowed Hortensia Bavvel, his mother, who is a bossy and short-tempered woman.
The Watched Pot had its professional premiere on July 14, 1930, during the third summer stock season of the University Players. It was directed by Bretaigne Windust. Among the cast were Henry Fonda (William), Elizabeth Johnson (Sybil Bumont), Christine Ramsey (Agatha Clifford), Charles Leatherbee (Trevor Bavvel), Elizabeth Fenner (Hortensia Bavvel), Kent Smith (Ludovic Bavvel), Aleta Freel (Clare Henessey), Bretaigne Windust (Rene St. Gall), Thomas Bartlett Quigley [1] (Stephen Sparrowby), Robert C. Leatherbee (The Youngest Drummond Boy), Alfred Dalrymple (Col. Mutsome), and Nancy Sullivan (Mrs. Peter Vulpy). [2]
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters who embodied an everyman image.
Jane Seymour Fonda is an American actress and activist. Recognized as a film icon, Fonda's work spans several genres and over six decades of film and television. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for a Grammy Award and two Tony Awards. Fonda also received the Honorary Palme d'Or in 2007, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2014, and the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021, and is set to receive the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2025.
Peter Henry Fonda was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He was a two-time Academy Award nominee, both for acting and screenwriting, and a two-time Golden Globe Award winner for his acting. He was a member of the Fonda acting family, as the son of actor Henry Fonda, the brother of actress and activist Jane Fonda, and the father of actress Bridget Fonda.
Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress.
Klute is a 1971 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alan J. Pakula, and starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Nathan George, Dorothy Tristan, Roy Scheider, and Rita Gam. Its plot follows a high-priced New York City call girl who assists a detective from Pennsylvania in solving the missing person case of a john who may be stalking her. It is the first installment of what has informally come to be known as Pakula's "paranoia trilogy", followed by The Parallax View (1974) and All the President's Men (1976), all films dealing with themes of paranoia, conspiracies, and surveillance.
Donald Robert Perry Marquis was an American humorist, journalist, and author. He was variously a novelist, poet, newspaper columnist, and playwright. He is remembered best for creating the characters Archy and Mehitabel, supposed authors of humorous verse. During his lifetime he was equally famous for creating another fictitious character, "the Old Soak," who was the subject of two books, a hit Broadway play (1922–23), a silent film (1926) and a talkie (1937).
Kemble is the name of a family of English actors, who reigned over the English stage for many decades. The most famous were Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) and her brother John Philip Kemble (1757–1823), the two eldest of the twelve children of Roger Kemble (1721–1802), a strolling player and manager of the Warwickshire Company of Comedians, who in 1753 married an actress, Sarah Ward. Roger Kemble was born in Hereford, and was a grand-nephew of Father John Kemble, a recusant Catholic priest, who was hanged in that city in 1679. Three younger children of Roger, Stephen Kemble (1758–1822), Charles Kemble (1775–1854), and Elizabeth Whitlock (1761–1836), were also actors, while Ann Hatton was a novelist.
Erik Barnouw was an American historian of radio and television broadcasting. At the time of his death, Barnouw was widely considered to be America's most distinguished historian of broadcasting.
The University Players was primarily a summer stock theater company located in West Falmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, from 1928 to 1932.
Barbara O'Neil was an American film and stage actress. She appeared in the film Gone with the Wind (1939) and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in All This, and Heaven Too (1940).
Aleta Freel was an American stage actress.
Eleanor Phelps was an American theater, film, radio, and television actress. She appeared in 17 Broadway theater productions.
Vortigern and Rowena, or Vortigern, an Historical Play, is a play that was touted as a newly discovered work by William Shakespeare when it first appeared in 1796. It was eventually revealed to be a Shakespeare hoax, the product of prominent forger William Henry Ireland and part of his wider series of forgeries. Its first performance was on 2 April 1796, when it was ridiculed by the audience. Its titular protagonists, Vortigern and Rowena, are figures from Britain's traditional history.
Ernest Bretaigne Windust was a United States–based, French-born theater, film and television director.
Winter Meeting is a 1948 American drama film directed by Bretaigne Windust and starring Bette Davis and Jim Davis. The screenplay, based on the novel of the same name by Grace Zaring Stone, was written by Catherine Turney.
June Bride is a 1948 American comedy film directed by Bretaigne Windust. The screenplay, which was based on the unproduced play Feature for June by Eileen Tighe and Graeme Lorimer, was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Comedy. The film starred Bette Davis and Robert Montgomery. The Warner Bros. release marked the screen debut of Debbie Reynolds, although her appearance was uncredited.
On Golden Pond is a 1981 drama film directed by Mark Rydell from a screenplay written by Ernest Thompson, adapted from his 1979 play of the same name. It stars Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, Doug McKeon, Dabney Coleman and William Lanteau. In the film, Norman, a crusty, retired professor grappling with many effects of aging, has been married for many years to upbeat, feisty Ethel, and has had a remote, difficult relationship with their daughter, Chelsea. At their summer home on Golden Pond, Norman and Ethel agree to care for Billy, the son of Chelsea's new boyfriend, and an unexpected relationship blooms.
Elizabeth Younge was an English actress who specialized in Shakespearean roles.
Princeton Summer Theater was founded in 1968 by a group of Princeton University undergraduates under the name 'Summer Intime' as a high grade summer stock theater company.
Charles Norris Houghton was an American stage manager, scenic designer, producer, director, theatre manager, academic, author, and public policy advocate. Houghton is known as an American expert in 20th-century Russian Theatre; as a major force in creating the "off-Broadway" movement; as a student and educator of global theater; and as an influential advocate of arts education.