Gale Sondergaard (1899-1985) was an American actress, known for her roles as sinister and exotic characters. She made her film debut in *Anthony Adverse* (1936), a performance that earned her the inaugural Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her career continued with notable roles in films such as *The Mark of Zorro* (1940) and *The Letter* (1940), earning a second Academy Award nomination for *Anna and the King of Siam* (1946). Her career was abruptly interrupted in the early 1950s due to the Hollywood blacklist, as her husband, director Herbert Biberman, was one of the Hollywood Ten. After a forced absence of nearly two decades, she returned to work sporadically in film and television starting in the late 1960s, but she never regained the prominence of her early period.