Famous People Named Edna
Who knew there were so many famous people named Edna in the world? Our list of celebrities named Edna includes pictures and information about each person when available, so you can get to know them a little better if you don't know them. The famous Ednas below come from all walks of life, but all ended up achieving fame or notoriety in one way or another. This list includes singers named Edna, actors named Edna, and much more. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edna May Oliver, and Edna Ferber are only a few of the well-known people named Edna on this list.
- Poet, Writer, PlaywrightEdna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 โ October 19, 1950) was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work. The poet Richard Wilbur asserted, "She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century."
- ActorEdna May Oliver (born Edna May Nutter, November 9, 1883 โ November 9, 1942) was an American stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the better-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters.
- Novelist, Author, WriterEdna Ferber (August 15, 1885 โ April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big (1924), Show Boat (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), Cimarron (1929; made into the 1931 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Giant (1952; made into the 1956 Hollywood movie) and Ice Palace (1958), filmed in 1960.
- Novelist, Screenwriter, AuthorJosephine Edna O'Brien, (born 15 December 1930) is an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short story writer. Philip Roth described her as "the most gifted woman now writing in English", while the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson cited her as "one of the great creative writers of her generation".O'Brien's works often revolve around the inner feelings of women, and their problems in relating to men, and to society as a whole. Her first novel, The Country Girls, is often credited with breaking silence on sexual matters and social issues during a repressive period in Ireland following World War II. The book was banned, burned and denounced from the pulpit, and O'Brien left Ireland behind. O'Brien now lives in London. She received the Irish PEN Award in 2001. Saints and Sinners won the 2011 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the world's richest prize for a short story collection. Faber and Faber published her memoir, Country Girl, in 2012. In 2015, she was bestowed Saoi by the Aosdรกna.
- AthleteEdna Ngeringwony Kiplagat (born 15 September 1979) is a Kenyan long-distance runner. She is the 2011 and 2013 IAAF World Champion in the marathon. She established herself as an elite marathon runner with wins at the Los Angeles and New York City Marathons in 2010. Her personal best for the distance is 2:19:50 hours, set at the London Marathon in 2012. At age 37, Kiplagat won the 2017 Boston Marathon in a time of 2:21:52 hours.
- Edna Skinner (May 23, 1921 โ August 8, 2003) was an American film and television actress notable for playing Kay Addison, neighbor of Wilbur Post, in the iconic TV series Mister Ed. Her character was replaced months after her onscreen husband (Larry Keating) died; according to Alan Young in his Archive of American Television interview, the writers tried to make her a widow on the show, but finally decided to bring in another married couple, Gordon and Winnie Kirkwood, played by Leon Ames and Florence MacMichael, and Edna Skinner had to leave the show. Skinner retired from acting in 1964 and was later a noted authority on fly fishing. She died of heart failure at her home in North Bend, Oregon on August 8, 2003, at the age of 82.
- ActorOlga Edna Purviance (; October 21, 1895 โ January 13, 1958) was an American actress during the silent movie era. She was the leading lady in many of Charlie Chaplin's early films and in a span of eight years, she appeared in over 30 films with him.
- ActorEdna Best (3 March 1900 โ 18 September 1974) was a British stage and screen actress.
- TeacherEdna Ruth Parker (nรฉe Scott) (April 20, 1893 โ November 26, 2008) was an American supercentenarian who, for fifteen months, was recognized as the oldest person in the world. She featured in two documentaries and was included in a Boston University DNA database of supercentenarians.
- Writer, ChefEdna Lewis (April 13, 1916 โ February 13, 2006) was a renowned African-American chef, teacher, and author who helped refine the American view of Southern cooking. She championed the use of fresh, in season ingredients and characterized Southern food as fried chicken (pan, not deep-fried), pork, and fresh vegetables โ most especially greens. She wrote and co-wrote four books which covered Southern cooking and life in a small community of freed slaves and their descendants.
- ActorEdna Lillian Dorรฉ (nรฉe Gorring; 31 May 1921 โ 11 April 2014) was a British actress. Dorรฉ was known for her bit-part roles in situation comedies and for playing the character of Mo Butcher in EastEnders from 1988 to 1990.
Edna Healey
Edna May Healey, Baroness Healey (nรฉe Edmunds; 14 June 1918 โ 21 July 2010) was a British writer, lecturer and filmmaker.- JournalistEdna Staebler, (January 15, 1906 โ September 12, 2006) was a Canadian author and award-winning literary journalist, best known for her series of cookbooks, particularly Food That Really Schmecks which is currently available in e-book form. While the book contains Mennonite recipes, the content also includes stories and anecdotes about life and home cooking in the rural areas of the Waterloo Region.
Edna Patterson
Francia Yakilnilna Mitynen aka Edna Margaret Patterson was a Soviet citizen born in Australia. Mitynen was an illegal officer of the Naval GRU who was smuggled into the United States in August 1943. Mitynen worked under the name Edna Patterson until she left America in 1956.- PoliticianEdna Kelly (nรฉe Flannery; August 20, 1906 โ December 14, 1997) was an American politician who served as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. Kelly was born in East Hampton, New York. She graduated from Hunter College in 1928. She was a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention, 1952 Democratic National Convention, 1956 Democratic National Convention, 1960 Democratic National Convention, and 1968 Democratic National Convention. She was elected to Congress in 1949 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Andrew L. Somers and served from November 8, 1949 until January 3, 1969. She was part of the Democratic National Committee from 1956 until 1968. Throughout her 19-year career in the House, Kelly was recognized for her expertise in foreign affairs, serving as the chair of the Subcommittee on Europe and retiring from Congress as the third ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. During her tenure, Kelly was responsible for measures that settled displaced people after World War II and refugees for Russia and Eastern Europe. She also helped to create the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.Early in the 1950s, she was among the first in Congress to advocate for a tax reduction for low-income single parents left with the sole responsibility of caring for their dependent children. Congresswoman Kelly called attention to the inequity in the Tax Code that permitted business deductions for entertainment, but none for child care. Her proposal became part of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.Kelly can also be credited with promoting the first equal pay for equal work bill, which she introduced in 1951. It was a landmark effort, which established a new era in the fight for women's equality. She was in attendance when President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law June 10, 1963.She received numerous awards, including the Mother Gerard Phelan Award from Marymount College; an honorary doctorate from Russell Sage College; and her alma mater Hunter College's highest honor, the Centennial Medal.She was married to New York City Court Justice Edward L. Kelly of Brooklyn, who died in 1942.Kelly died in Alexandria, Virginia of cancer and a series of strokes at the age of 91. She had two children, eight grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.
- ActorEdna Marion, also known as Edna Marian (born Edna Marion Hannam; December 12, 1906 โ December 2, 1957) was a silent motion picture actress who appeared in a number of Hal Roach short comedies. Her death certificate states she was a housewife when she died in Los Angeles from pneumonia, and her death widowed her husband Harold Naisbitt. She is buried at Holy-Cross Cemetery, in Los Angeles CA.
- Film Producer, ScreenwriterEdna Anhalt (April 10, 1914 โ 1987) was an American screenwriter, television writer, and film producer. Together with then husband Edward Anhalt, she enjoyed some considerable success in a 10-year stretch from 1947 to her retirement in 1957. This stretch was capped with an Oscar win for Elia Kazan's 1950 film Panic in the Streets, and another nomination two years later for The Sniper. She also wrote the screenplays to The Member of the Wedding (1952), Not as a Stranger (1955) and The Pride and the Passion (1957), before hanging up her pen after her divorce.
- Journalist, Novelist, AuthorEdna Buchanan (nรฉe Rydzik, born March 16, 1939) is an American journalist and writer best known for her crime mystery novels. She won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting "for her versatile and consistently excellent police beat reporting."
- PsychologistEdna Foa (born 1937, Haifa) is an Israeli professor of clinical psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she serves as the Director of the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety. Foa is an internationally renowned authority on the psychopathology and treatment of anxiety. She approaches the understanding and treatment of mental disorders from a cognitive-behavioral perspective.
- ActorEdna Morris was an actor.
- Model, ActorEdna Murphy (November 17, 1899 โ August 3, 1974) was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 80 films between 1918 and 1933. Murphy was voted "Most Photographed Movie Star of 1925" by ScreenLand Magazine.
- ActorEdna Holland was an actress.
- ActorEdna Mae Harris (September 29, 1914 โ September 15, 1997), sometimes credited as Edna May Harris was an American actress and singer. Harris was one of the premier AfricanโAmerican film actress of the late 1930s and early 1940s, appearing in films featuring mostly AfricanโAmerican casts.
- Actor, SingerEdna May Pettie (September 2, 1878 โ January 1, 1948), known on stage as Edna May, was an American actress and singer. A popular postcard beauty, May was famous for her leading roles in Edwardian musical comedies.
Edna Kramer
MathematicianEdna Ernestine Kramer Lassar (May 11, 1902 - July 9, 1984), born Edna Ernestine Kramer, was an American mathematician and author of mathematics books. Kramer was born in Manhattan to Jewish immigrants. She earned her B.A. summa cum laude in mathematics from Hunter College in 1922. While teaching at local high schools, she earned her M.A. in 1925 and Ph.D. in 1930 in mathematics (with a minor in physics) from Columbia University with Edward Kasner as her advisor. She married the French teacher Benedict Taxier Lassar on July 2, 1935. Kramer died at the age of 82 in Manhattan of Parkinson's disease.Edna Flugrath
ActorEdna Flugrath (December 29, 1892 โ April 6, 1966) was the eldest of three sisters who found fame as silent film stars.- SingerEdna Savage (21 April 1936 โ 31 December 2000) was a traditional pop singer in the United Kingdom. Savage was born in Warrington, Lancashire, England. She had two sisters, both older. Her father was a landscape gardener, her mother an amateur singer. She left school at age 15 (common in the UK in those days). At first she trained as a telephone operator, but after a few bands had her sing for them locally, she quit the telephone job to sing professionally. She auditioned twice for the BBC before making her first broadcast, in 1954. She recorded a number of records, only one of which charted, "Arrivederci Darling" in 1956, which made it to No. 19 in the UK Singles Chart. In 1957 she participated in the UK qualifying heat for the Eurovision Song Contest. In addition to being briefly married to fellow singer Terry Dene, Savage married three more times.She died at the age of 64.
Edna Gregory
ActorEdna Gregory was an actor.Edna Hong
Translator, WriterEdna Hong was a translator and writer.Edna Mazia
Theatre Director, Novelist, ScreenwriterEdna Mazia is a screenwriter, novelist, playwright and theater director.
