Born in
Malden, Massachusetts, the daughter of Ida May and Charles Edward Nutter, Oliver quit school at age 14 to pursue a stage career. She achieved her first success in 1917 on
Broadway in
Jerome Kern's musical comedy
Oh, Boy!, playing the hero's comically dour Aunt Penelope. In 1923 she appeared as Hannah in the Broadway version of
Owen Davis's Icebound. She would later reprise the Hannah role in
William C. De Mille's silent film of
Icebound the following year. In 1925, Oliver appeared on
Broadway in
The Cradle Snatchers, costarring
Mary Boland,
Gene Raymond, and
Humphrey Bogart. Oliver's most notable stage appearance was as Parthy, wife of Cap'n Andy Hawks, in the original 1927 stage production of the musical
Show Boat. She reprised her role in the 1932 Broadway revival, but turned down the chance to play Parthy in the
1936 film version to play the Nurse in that year's film version of
Romeo and Juliet. Her film debut was in 1923 in
Wife in Name Only. She continued to appear in films until
Lydia in 1941. She first gained major notice in films for her appearances in several comedies starring the team of
Wheeler & Woolsey, including
Half Shot at Sunrise, her first film under her
RKO Radio Pictures contract in 1930. Usually in featured parts, she starred in ten films, including
Fanny Foley Herself (1931) and
Ladies of the Jury (1932). She played wealthy, domineering Aunt March in the 1933 version of
Little Women. '' (1935) , Oliver and
Leslie Howard in
Romeo and Juliet (1936) Oliver's most popular star vehicles were mystery-comedies, starring as spinster sleuth
Hildegarde Withers from the popular
Stuart Palmer novels. The series ended prematurely when she left RKO to sign with
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1935; the studio attempted to continue the series with
Helen Broderick and then
ZaSu Pitts as Withers. While at MGM,
David O. Selznick cast Oliver in two film versions of novels by
Charles Dickens, as the prim, acidic Miss Pross, in
A Tale of Two Cities (1935), starring
Ronald Colman, and as the title character's eccentric aunt, Betsy Trotwood, in
David Copperfield (also 1935). She appeared in the Shirley Temple film
Little Miss Broadway (1938) as the landlord of a hotel for vaudevillians who wants to shut it down. She also performed in two 1939 movie musicals: with
Tyrone Power in the
Sonja Henie skating film
Second Fiddle, and in a supporting role as the agent of the title characters in the
Fred Astaire/
Ginger Rogers musical
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. A 1940 comic performance as
Laurence Olivier's
Mr. Darcy's domineering aunt
Lady Catherine de Bourgh in
Pride and Prejudice and a 1941 role as
Merle Oberon's grandmother in
Lydia concluded her film career. She was also cast in noncomedic films such as
Cimarron (1931),
Ann Vickers (1933), and
Romeo and Juliet (1936). ==Death==