Josephine Hutchinson Movies and Career Information

Josephine Hutchinson (October 12, 1903 – June 4, 1998) was an American actress. She was born in Seattle, Washington. Her mother, Leona Roberts, was an actress best-known for her role as "Mrs. Meade" in Gone with the Wind. Through her mother's connections, Hutchinson made her film debut at the age of thirteen in The Little Princess, starring Mary Pickford. She later attended the Cornish School of Music and Drama in Seattle, and then moved to New York City where she began acting in theater. By the late 1920s she was one of the actors able to make the transition from silent movies to talkies. Hutchinson married Robert W. Bell, a stage director, in 1924. In 1926, she met the actress Eva Le Gallienne and became a member of Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre company. By 1927, the two women were involved in a lesbian affair, and Hutchinson and Bell, who separated in 1928, were divorced in 1930. The press quickly dubbed her Le Gallienne's shadow, a term which at the time meant lesbian. Both actresses survived the scandal in those heady days and carried on with their respective careers. Under contract with Warner Bros., Hutchinson went to Hollywood in 1934, debuting in Happiness Ahead.