We went out last night to see The Big Sleep on 16-mm film, and the evening opened with a 1928 Robert Benchley short called The Sex Life of a Polyp, which was actually quite amusing. And it reminded me of Aunt Margaret--not my aunt, but Tom's great-aunt, who was a Hollywood actress under the name of Margaret Bert. Look her up on IMDB sometime. She had bit parts in some of the most famous movies ever made: Singin' in the Rain, Brigadoon, Easter Parade, that kind of thing, and she also appeared in a few of these Robert Benchley shorts. Aunt Margaret played the Mother or the Maid or the Nurse in close to two hundred films and TV episodes, often uncredited, almost always a stock aging lady type.

Margaret Bert was born Margaret Birtwistle in Lancashire, England, at the end of the 19th century. She must have come to America early, because she began her theatrical career dancing at the Ziegfeld Follies (as did her little brother, Tom's grandfather, who eventually left show biz and went into regular biz). I don't know much at all about her personal life, though Tom's father does remember spending time with her when he was a child. I don't think she was married or had children of her own. But somehow she managed to make a career for herself, playing parts that were as far from starring roles as one could get.