Obituaries : Actress Florence Eldridge; Widow of Fredric March

Florence Eldridge, the celebrated and distinguished stage actress also known for her memorable, if irregular, film appearances, is dead at the age of 86.

The widow and frequent co-star of actor Fredric March died Monday night at St. Francis Hospital in Santa Barbara.

The cause of death was not reported, but Miss Eldridge was known to have been in frail health for several months.

She and March, who died in 1975 at the age of 77, had lived in a seaside condominium in the Santa Barbara suburb of Montecito since 1974.

A Rising Star

She was a star on the rise who subordinated her own career to that of her husband’s after their marriage in 1927, but her infrequent appearances on stage and screen over the years continued to draw critical praise while also yielding commercial success.

Perhaps the best known of her triumphs came when at age 55 she and March became the battling Tyrones in Eugene O’Neill’s grueling “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

She was on the Broadway stage for nearly all of the play’s four hours as the tormented, drug-addicted mother, and her effort brought her a Tony Award nomination and a best actress award in 1956 from the New York Drama Critics Circle.

Miss Eldridge was born Florence McKechnie in Brooklyn. She had wanted to act since childhood, she told interviewers, and by 1921 she had been singled out for attention in the New York Theater Guild’s production of “Ambush.”

Met Husband-to-Be

Between 1921 and 1927, when she met and married March after appearing opposite him in “The Swan,” she was featured in “The Cat and the Canary” and “Six Characters in Search of an Author,” and as the despised Daisy in “The Great Gatsby.”

But after their wedding, she told The Times last year in an interview in connection with a Los Angeles tribute to March’s films, “I just took secondary parts.”

“When we got married I didn’t want to start by making more money than Freddy, so I asked our . . . stock company to combine our two salaries and divide the check in half.”

Shortly after their marriage, March, with his distinctive features and resonant voice, embarked on the film career that was to bring him two Oscars and overwhelming successes.

Miss Eldridge appeared with her husband in such movies as “Studio Murder Mystery,” “Les Miserables” and “Another Part of the Forest.” Without him, she was seen in “The Story of Temple Drake,” based on William Faulkner’s “Sanctuary,” and “Mary of Scotland,” in which she played Elizabeth I.

One Last Movie

Their last film together was “Inherit the Wind” in 1960, in which she portrayed March’s wife.

On stage she appeared with March in “The Skin of Our Teeth” and “Yr. Obedient Husband,” based on the diary of Samuel Pepys. She was seen without March in Arthur Miller’s “An Enemy of the People.”

In what was considered a daring venture in 1948, they were featured in a film about euthanasia titled in different releases “An Act of Mercy” and “An Act of Murder.”

The couple also worked together entertaining soldiers during World War II. Miss Eldridge once said they had logged 35,000 miles in overseas travel performing for U.S. troops.

Survivors include a daughter, five grandchildren, a great-granddaughter and two brothers.