Ann Sothern (born Harriette Arlene Lake; January 22, 1909 – March 15, 2001) was an American actress who worked on stage, radio, film, and television, in a career that spanned nearly six decades.

In 1987, Sothern appeared in her final film, The Whales of August, starring Bette Davis and Lillian Gish.

After filming concluded, she retired to Ketchum, Idaho, where she spent her remaining years before her death from heart failure in March 2001.

As a teen at Minneapolis Central High School, she appeared in numerous stage productions and directed several shows.

A review of Swing Shift Maisie (1943) by Time magazine praised Sothern and described her as "one of the smartest comediennes in the business".

Panama Hattie had been a hit on Broadway with Ethel Merman in the title role, but was plagued with production problems after MGM attempted to shoot the film version.

Sothern received excellent reviews for her performance but the acclaim failed to stimulate her career, which had begun to wane in the late 1940s.

Sothern portrayed Susan Camille "Susie" MacNamara, a secretary working for New York City talent agent Peter Sands (Don Porter).

Private Secretary was a hit with audiences, routinely placing in the top 10, and Sothern was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her role on the series three[14] times.

Sothern starred as Kathleen "Katy" O'Connor, the assistant manager at the fictitious Bartley House Hotel.

Sothern's co-star from Private Secretary, Don Porter, signed on as Katy's boss James Devery.

Ratings for the series remained solid until CBS moved The Ann Sothern Show to Thursdays for its third season.

Scheduled opposite the ABC series The Untouchables, ratings dropped substantially and The Ann Sothern Show was canceled in 1961.

[19] After The Ann Sothern Show ended, she returned to films in the political drama The Best Man (1964), opposite Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson.

That same year, she portrayed a prostitute in the psychological thriller Lady in a Cage, starring Olivia de Havilland.

In 1965, she had a recurring role on her friend Lucille Ball's The Lucy Show as the "Countess Framboise" (née Rosie Harrigan).

[20] In 1965, Sothern co-starred in the TV comedy series My Mother the Car, opposite Jerry Van Dyke.

Van Dyke played a struggling lawyer and family man who discovers a dilapidated, vintage 1928 automobile in a used-car lot.

Van Dyke restores the car to its original condition and takes it home, where it bemuses his family and becomes the envy of a zealous collector.

In an Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode, entitled "Water's Edge", Sothern turned in a most impressive performance.

The next year, she played the domineering mother of a homicidal son in psychological horror film The Killing Kind.

She worked sporadically in television and in stage productions,[22] including a small role in the horror film The Manitou with Tony Curtis (1978).

Sothern returned to television in 1985 in the role of "Ma Finney" in an adaptation of one of her old films, A Letter to Three Wives.

Her role as the neighbor of elderly sisters, played by Lillian Gish and Bette Davis, earned her the only Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination of her career.

[23] After filming, Sothern retired from acting and moved to Ketchum, Idaho, where she spent her remaining years.

During her hiatus from Private Secretary in 1954, she starred in her own nightclub act featured in clubs in Reno, Las Vegas, and Chicago.

[29] Shortly after filming A Letter to Three Wives Sothern contracted infectious hepatitis after getting an impure serum shot while she was in England for a stage performance.

[30] In 1974 Sothern was injured while appearing in a Jacksonville, Florida, stock production of Everybody Loves Opal when a prop tree fell on her back.