Ann Codee (born Anna Marie Vannuefflin or Ann Van Huffelen; 5 March 1890 – 18 May 1961) was a Belgian actress with numerous hit films on her résumé, such as Can-Can, Kiss Me Kate, and Interrupted Melody. Born in Antwerp, Belgium, her name was sometimes found in newspapers as Anna Cody.
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Biography
Codee was born in Brussels, Belgium, or in Antwerp, a sixth-generation member of a family of circus performers. She was a circus star by age 10, and in 1908 she and two sisters began performing in a Circus Days show at the Hippodrome in New York.
She married actor Frank Orth around 1911. She and her husband toured American vaudeville in the 1910s and 1920s as the comedy act "Codee and Orth". The team made its film debut in 1929, appearing in a series of multilingual movie shorts. Thereafter, both Codee and Orth flourished as Hollywood character actors. Codee was seen in dozens of films as florists, music teachers, landladies, governesses and grandmothers. She played a variety of ethnic types, from the very French Mme. Poullard in Jezebel (1938) to the Gallic Tante Berthe in The Mummy's Curse (1941).
Codee's last film appearance was as a tight-corseted committeewoman in Can-Can (1960). Her career highlights include her part in the Natalie Wood film Kings Go Forth (1948) and the Oscar-nominated Ann Miller film Kiss Me Kate (1953). She also had an uncredited role as the biologist Dr. Dupree in the 1953 film The War of the Worlds.
Name changes
When she began touring with Orth, she changed her last name, and the duo was billed as Orth and Cody. After about three years, Jacob J. Shubert decided to give the act a French flavor. He changed the spelling of her last name, billing the pair as Orth and Codee. He also "fixed her up with 38 trunks, several French poodles and publicized her as a fresh and exciting arrival from 'Gay Paree'".
Personal life and death
Codeedied of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California on May 18, 1961, aged 71. She is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills next to her husband. She had a son and a daughter.
