Early years Evans was born in
Pimlico, London, the daughter of Edward Evans, a junior civil servant in the
General Post Office, and his wife, Caroline Ellen
née Foster. She had one sibling, a brother who died at the age of four. She was educated at St Michael's Church of England School, Pimlico, before being apprenticed at the age of 15 in 1903 as a
milliner. She commented in later years that she loved the rich and beautiful materials of the craft, but could not manage to make two hats alike. Poel then cast her as Cressida in
Troilus and Cressida in London and subsequently at
Stratford-upon-Avon. The critic of
The Manchester Guardian found her diction inadequate, but otherwise approved: "Miss Edith Evans, who, without quite the invincible charm for Cressida, gave an interesting performance". Evans's
West End debut was in
George Moore's
Elizabeth Cooper in 1913. The play received poor notices, but Evans was praised: "In the very small part of a maid Miss Edith Evans made the success of the afternoon. She put more into her few minutes than most of our approved 'stars' can suggest in leading parts." In January 1914 she made her professional Shakespearian debut as Gertrude in
Hamlet. In 1914, at Moore's instigation, Evans was given a year's contract by the
Royalty Theatre in
Soho. She played character roles in comedies, as a junior member of casts that included
Gladys Cooper and
Lynn Fontanne. Over the next ten years she polished her craft in a wide range of parts. She then appeared in
East is East in 1917, but thereafter made no more films for over thirty years. She toured in Shakespeare with
Ellen Terry's company in 1918, appeared in light comedy alongside the young
Noël Coward (
Polly With a Past, 1921) and played five new
Shavian roles, Lady Utterword in
Heartbreak House (1921) and the Serpent, the Oracle, the She-Ancient and the ghost of the Serpent in
Back to Methuselah (1923). In 1922 she made what
J. T. Grein in
The Illustrated London News called "a personal triumph" in
Alfred Sutro's comedy
The Laughing Lady.
Stardom By this time Evans was well known to the critics, and frequently received excellent notices; with her performance as Millamant in
The Way of the World in 1924 she achieved wide public fame for the first time. Nigel Playfair cast her as the strong-willed and witty heroine in his revival of
Congreve's
Restoration comedy at the
Lyric Hammersmith, in 1924. The critics resorted to superlatives:
James Agate wrote, "Let me not mince matters. Miss Edith Evans is the most accomplished of living and practising English actresses."
Arnold Bennett noted in his journals that this Millamant was the finest comedy performance he had ever seen. Her colleagues too were struck by the performance.
John Gielgud recalled: In the 1925–26 season, Evans joined the company of the
Old Vic, playing Portia in
The Merchant of Venice, Cleopatra in
Antony and Cleopatra, Katherina in
The Taming of the Shrew, Rosalind in
As You Like It, Mistress Page in
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Beatrice in
Much Ado and Nurse in
Romeo and Juliet – one of her most celebrated roles. Looking back in 1976 at Evans's career
The Times observed that the two decades after her success as Millamant showed the range of her talent. The paper counted among her "performances of absolute assurance" in this period those in
Tiger Cats (1924), ''
The Beaux' Stratagem (1927), The Lady with a Lamp
(1929), and The Apple Cart'' (1929) in which she played Orinthia, the king's mistress, a role written for her by Shaw. The following year she played in a West End revival of
Heartbreak House, this time playing Hesione Hushabye.
Postwar Evans played Shakespeare's Cleopatra for the last time in 1946–47, in her late fifties. Her performance divided the critics: opinions varied from "an agonising disaster" to "a joy to watch".
Kenneth Tynan said, "Lady Bracknell has been involved in a low Alexandrian scandal". which he took to mean that she could not contemplate the character's "explicit admission of evil". and
Allan Aynesworth, who had created the role of Algernon in
The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895. This was Aynesworth's last film; Evans went on to make eighteen more over the next three decades. She played an elderly Welsh woman, and was well received by reviewers, although one wondered if she was yet quite at home before the camera: "there are indeed moments when she looks as disproportionate as a life-size Rembrandt in a one-room flatlet. But it is not, of course, the flatlet which stays in the memory". In the same year she played Countess Ranevskaya in
Thorold Dickinson's film version of
The Queen of Spades. – though much admired, overshadowed the rest of the cast. In November of the same year she made one of her rare appearances in
Chekhov, as Ranevskaya in
The Cherry Orchard. Her performance divided opinion: in
The Observer Ivor Brown wrote of "the glorious impact of an authentic genius at the highest level of world-theatre", but the anonymous reviewer in
The Times thought that she "remains, a little mysteriously, outside of the character". Over the next ten years Evans played in only six stage productions because she appeared in long-running West End plays. From March 1949 to November 1950 she appeared as Lady Pitts in
Daphne Laureola in London and then New York. At the Haymarket she played Helen Lancaster in
Waters of the Moon, which ran for more than two years. In April 1954 she played Countess Rosmarin Ostenburg in
The Dark Is Light Enough, and at the Haymarket she was Mrs St Maugham in
The Chalk Garden from April 1956 to November 1957. In the 1961 Stratford season Evans played Queen Margaret in
Richard III and appeared for the last time as the Nurse in
Romeo and Juliet. At the Queen's Theatre in November 1963, she played Violet in
Gentle Jack by
Robert Bolt. In 1964 in a production for the
National Theatre, she returned to the role of Judith Bliss in
Hay Fever, heading a cast that in Coward's words "could play the Albanian telephone directory". Her films from the first half of the 1960s were
Tom Jones (1963),
The Chalk Garden and
Young Cassidy (both made in 1964).
Bryan Forbes, who had directed Edith Evans in
The Whisperers and
The Slipper and the Rose, wrote her biography ''Ned's Girl'', first published in 1977. Evans died at her home in
Cranbrook, Kent, on 14 October 1976, aged 88. ==Honours==