Anna Townsend

{{Infobox person

| name = Anna Townsend

| image = Grandma's Boy (1922) - Lloyd & Townsend.jpg

| caption = Townsend (right) with Harold Lloyd in Grandma's Boy

| birth_date = {{birth date|1845|1|5}}

| birth_place = Utica, New York

| death_date = {{death date and age|1923|9|11|1845|1|5}}

| death_place = Los Angeles, California, US

| yearsactive = 1913-1923

| occupation = Actress

| children = 1

}}

Mrs. Anna Townsend (January 5, 1845{{Citation needed |date=September 2023}} – September 11, 1923) was a silent film actress who first turned to acting as a career very late in life. Featured in several Harold Lloyd films,{{cite news | title = Aged Film Actress Is Dead Here |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-anna-townsend/132200241/ | work = Los Angeles Times | page = II 10 | date = 1923-09-12}} Townsend is probably best known for her role as Harold's good-hearted grandmother in Grandma's Boy (1922).{{cite book |last=Klepper |first=Robert K. |author-link= |date=2005 |title=Silent Films, 1877-1996: A Critical Guide to 646 Movies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jDGSCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA290 |location=Jefferson, NC |publisher=MacFarland & Company |page=290 |quote=Josephine Crowell as the mother-in-law does in Hot Water what Anna Townsend did for Grandma's Boy (1922); she steals the show in virtually every sequence she appears in. |isbn=978-0-7864-2164-0}} That film was developed around Townsend's personality.{{cite news |title=Anna Townsend, Screen's Best Known Grandma, Dead |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/122333077/anna-townsend/ |access-date=April 5, 2023 |work=The Sacramento Bee |date=September 29, 1923 |page=39|via = Newspapers.com}}

Early life and career

Townsend was born in Utica, New York. She moved from there to Los Angeles in 1885. Her film career began in 1919.

According to a 1922 profile published in the Los Angeles Evening Express, Townsend's sole acting experience prior to her brief silent screen heyday was an even briefer pre-Civil War tour of duty with the Holman Light Opera Company.{{cite news |title='Grandma' Anna Townsend Is 79, Spry as Cricket |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/122353855/anna-townsend/ |access-date=April 6, 2023 |work=Los Angeles Evening Express |date=June 10, 1922 |page=9|via = Newspapers.com}} This was in large part corroborated the following year by the Sacramento Bee, whose obituary for Townsend states that the actress's emergence "three years ago" constituted the first time "she [had] ever considered pursuing acting as a profession."

Personal life and death

Married at least once and predeceased by her husband,{{cite news |title=Grandma Adored at Roach Studio |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/745455553/?clipping_id=99951054 |access-date=September 22, 2023 |work=Daily Gazette-Martinez |date=April 4, 1923 |page=4 |quote=Mrs. Anna Townsend [is] an adorable little lady who boasts of her seventy-nine summers. Mrs. Townsend is a widow who lives in a spic-and-span house, quite independent of her grown-up children. [...] She worked for two years at the studio before letting her children know about it. One day there was a family party at the theatre. 'Oh, there's our Granny,' one of the grandchildren cried. |via = Newspapers.com}} Mrs. Townsend died on September 11, 1923, at her home in Los Angeles,{{cite news|title=Anna Townsend, Actress, Dies|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18730546/anna_townsend/|work=The Times Herald|date=September 12, 1923|location=Michigan, Port Huron|page=1|via = Newspapers.com|accessdate = March 28, 2018}} {{Open access}} apparently due to an unspecified illness contracted two months earlier while sightseeing at Yosemite National Park.

She was survived, at the very least, by one grown child, a daughter.{{cite news |title=Anna Townsend |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1923/09/13/archives/uuuuuu-i-anna-townsend-i.html |access-date=April 5, 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=September 13, 1923 |page=19|url-access=subscription}} Moreover, judging from a profile of Townsend published that spring, in which references made to both "grown-up children" and "grandchildren" figure prominently, there were almost certainly additional survivors.