Verree Teasdale (March 15, 1903 – February 17, 1987) was an American actress born in Spokane, Washington.

Early years

A cousin to poet Sara Teasdale and second cousin of Edith Wharton, Teasdale attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn and trained as a stage actress with the Institute Players at the Academy of Music.

Career

Teasdale debuted on Broadway, straight from the Institute Players, as the "caustic-tongued poseur" Augusta Winslow Martin in The Youngest (1924). She performed regularly on Broadway until 1932. After co-starring in Somerset Maugham's play The Constant Wife with Ethel Barrymore in 1926–1927, she was offered a film contract, and her first film, Syncopation, was released in 1929. Teasdale appeared older than her physical age, which enabled her to play bored society wives, scheming other women and second leads in comedies such as Roman Scandals (1933). In 1935, she played Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Personal life and death

Teasdale married actor William O'Neal in 1927, and they divorced in 1933. In 1935, she married actor Adolphe Menjou, and they remained together until his death in 1963. Teasdale and Menjou appeared together in two films, The Milky Way in 1936 and Turnabout in 1940, and were co-hosts of a syndicated radio program in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A June 19, 1949, review by Jack Gould in The New York Times said Meet the Menjous "easily is among the most literate and enjoyable items on the daytime schedule". Teasdale retired after the radio program finished its run, keeping busy with her hobby of costume design. She died on February 17, 1987, in Culver City, California.

Broadway theater

Complete filmography