Hull was born January 3, 1876, in Newtonville, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of William Henry Sherwood, a businessman, and Mary Tewksbury.
In Dear Josephine, W. G. B. Carson notes that the actress never divulged the exact year of her birth. When her subsequent fame inspired speculation, she "arbitrarily picked 1886 – the year of her father's death – for publicity purposes. "
Education
Growing up in Newtonville, she was educated in the local schools. She also studied piano, composition, and singing. Her mother intended her to be a singer, but, as Josephine later recalled, "Almost ever since I can remember, I was stage-struck down to my toes. "
In 1895 Sherwood enrolled at Radcliffe College, where she participated prominently in school theater productions. Upon graduation in 1899, she enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music; the following year she began studying for the stage under the much-respected actress Catherine ("Kate") Reignolds.
Career
In 1902 she made her professional debut in a walk-on role with the Castle Square Theater Dramatic Company in Boston. After brief experience with the Castle Square troupe, she played numerous road engagements, touring for a time with the companies of George Ober and Wilton Lackaye.
Sherwood all but retired from the stage when she married Shelley Vaughn Hull, a gifted young actor, in 1910. All her ambitions now centered on him rather than herself, and she resolutely kept in the background. Shelley Hull was appearing in a war play, Under Orders, when he contracted influenza and died in 1919. In 1921 Hull began directing and acting with Jessie Bonstelle's stock company in Detroit. She later recalled some "excellent advice" given her by Bonstelle: "You are too good an actress not to act. Start now as a character woman while you're young – you'll be very wise. "
Hull moved to New York late in 1922. The following year she directed the Equity Player's production of Roger Bloomer and appeared in Neighbors. Now using her husband's name professionally, she was seen in 1924 as the hero's mother in Fata Morgana. In 1925 she appeared in Craig's Wife, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Ten years were to pass before she would find herself in another Broadway hit. During this period, she appeared in such plays as Daisy Mayme (1926), The Wild Man of Borneo (1927), March Hares (1928), Before You're Twenty-five (1929), Those We Love (1930), After Tomorrow (1931), A Thousand Summers (1932), An American Dream (1933), By Your Leave (1934), and Seven Keys to Baldpate (1935). Most of these engagements were professional disappointments. Though she appeared in an extraordinary number of short-lived plays, she consistently received favorable reviews for her performances.
In the late 1920's and early 1930's, Hull also traveled in Europe, did some radio work, and appeared in the film version of After Tomorrow (1932). She next scored a memorable success as Penelope, the nitwit author-sculptor of the zany Sycamore family, in You Can't Take It With You (1936), a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman that ran for two years on Broadway. Then, in January 1941, she opened with Jean Adair and Boris Karloff in Joseph Kesselring's comedy Arsenic and Old Lace. The play ran for 1, 444 performances in New York alone. She played Abby Brewster, one of a pair of elderly sisters who administered poison in elderberry wine to lonely boarders. Her role in this play established Hull among Broadway's immortals; as Carson notes, had she "never played another part, she would have been secure in the possession of her niche. " She also played Abby in Frank Capra's film version of Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).
Hull's comic genius was brought into even greater prominence in late 1944, when she appeared as the bewildered sister of a man who conversed with a giant invisible rabbit in Mary Chase's Harvey, which won a Pulitzer Prize and ran for four years on Broadway. Playing opposite James Stewart in the film version of Harvey, she won an Academy Award as best supporting actress for 1950. During the early 1950's, Hull appeared in another movie, The Lady From Texas (1951), and in such plays as The Golden State (1950) and The Solid Gold Cadillac (1953). Her appearance in The Solid Gold Cadillac, a hit by George S. Kaufman and Howard Teichmann, marked her last appearance on Broadway. The first of a series of strokes forced her to retire from the stage in 1954. Though she did manage to make several television appearances, her health continued to decline. She died in New York City.
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
"Playing Shakespeare is really tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you're the king. "
Recipient Motion Picture Academy award as best supporting actress (role in Harvey), 1951. Hollywood Foreign Corresponding award, 1951. Lambs award for noteworthy achievement in the theatre, 1956.
Recipient Motion Picture Academy award as best supporting actress (role in Harvey), 1951. Hollywood Foreign Corresponding award, 1951. Lambs award for noteworthy achievement in the theatre, 1956.