Beryl Mercer

Born in Spain to British parents, actress Beryl Mercer was on-stage from early childhood. Too short and matronly for leading lady roles, Beryl thrived for four decades as a character actress. In films from 1922, she specialized in frail, motherly roles in talkies, e.g., All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Public Enemy (1931), and Broken Lullaby (1932). She was also supremely capable of conveying feistiness and determination; in the last year of her life, she played a snappish spiritualist in Hound of the Baskervilles and Queen Victoria in The Little Princess. Beryl Mercer was the wife of British leading man Holmes Herbert. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide