Sara Uytendale Caner

http://articles.philly.com/1990-07-04/news/25897296_1_plays-and-pla...

Uytendale Caner, 93; Was Socialite, Actress

By Michael D. Schaffer, Inquirer Staff Writer POSTED: July 04, 1990

Uytendale Caner, 93, a socialite acclaimed in the 1920s for her acting ability and her elegance, died Sunday at the Quadrangle in Haverford.

In a professional acting career that began in 1924 and continued until the late 1930s, Mrs. Caner performed on stage with Nelson Eddy, Henry Fonda, Frederic March, Burgess Meredith, Robert Montgomery - who taught her two daughters to swim - and Peggy Wood.

Newspapers regularly referred to her as one of Philadelphia's most beautiful women. In 1929, the Record proclaimed her the best-dressed woman in the city. Record reporter Elsie Finn wrote, "One look at Mrs. Caner immediately suggests charm, grace and a refinement of taste."

Mrs. Caner was born Sara Uytendale Baird in Darby in 1896. In 1901, her family moved to Paris, where her parents - both accomplished amateur opera singers - studied voice for several years.

She became fascinated with the stage as a young child and frequently entertained her parents' friends, including novelist Booth Tarkington and singers Enrico Caruso and Nellie Melba, said her grandson, Bill Scott.

After returning to Philadelphia, she joined Plays and Players, an amateur theatrical club, at age 17.

She later recalled in a paper written for another grandson, Nathaniel Caner: "I cannot remember a time, no matter how far back I reach into my childhood, that I did not want to grow up to be an actress. As a small child aided and abetted by my governess, the games we played were all concerned with acting. I was alternately Joan of Arc and Queen Marie Antoinette."

But she was pulled in different directions by the demands of her social class, her family and her desire to be an actress. "She could have lived three separate lives," Scott said.

In 1916, at the age of 20, she married Harrison Koons Caner Jr. She had three children over the next 11 years, but still pursued her acting career, using the stage name Uytendale Allaire.

Mrs. Caner made her professional debut in 1924 when George Kelly invited her to appear on Broadway as the widow in The Torch Bearers. To the chagrin of her disapproving in-laws and perplexed husband, she traveled to New York with her mother and appeared in the play, then continued in the role when the company came to Philadelphia, Scott said.

She often appeared in benefits for what she called "sweet charity" and acted with Plays and Players and with summer stock companies in Cape May, N.J.; Denver; Dennis, Mass., and Philadelphia.

She traveled with one company on a tour to Boston; Hartford, Conn.; New Haven, Conn.; New Rochelle, N.Y.; Providence, R.I.; Washington, and Wilmington. While on tour, she raced home by milk train on weekends to be with her children, according to one newspaper account.

"One of the fascinations of playing in stock is the contact you form with so many different types of people," she told the Record in 1931.

"I found myself picking out the 'winners' in the company, those who I thought were bound for success," she said. "It was like choosing a dark horse. While with the company in Denver, I chose Fred March, now a leading star in the movies. In Dennis, I bet on Robert Montgomery, then playing the juvenile roles - now the screen idol of all the school girls."

But she said she couldn't tell anyone how to prepare for a stage career. I've never studied anyplace - my experiences have all been from luck," she said. "I feel you must have a born sense of timing and technique to be a successful actor or actress, and you learn more from actual experience than any other way."

After her mother died in 1930, she stoped taking jobs outside Philadelphia, Bill Scott said. Before retiring in the late 1930s, she also directed plays at Plays and Players.

Mrs. Caner also won acclaim for beauty and style.

Elsie Finn reported in the Record that she had sought out Mrs. Caner for an interview because "she bears the reputation of being the best-dressed woman in Philadelphia, and I wanted to talk about clothes."

Mrs. Caner told Finn that "clothes are the index of a woman's personality. . . . It is important that a woman choose her clothes with thought and care. The moment a woman steps into a room, one can judge just what kind of a person she is. If her clothes are garish and bold, you may well guess that she is no Sunday school teacher."

Mrs. Caner was a member of the Acorn Club, Cosmopolitan Club, Hannah Penn House in New York, Merion Cricket Club and Sedgley Club. She was vice president of the Republican Women of Pennsylvania in the early 1940s.

Her husband died in 1981.

She is survived by her daughters, Uytendale C. Scott and Katharine Hare; son, Harrison K. Caner 3d; nine grandchildren; six great-grandchildren, and a brother.

A memorial service will be held at 11:30 a.m. Saturday in the Chapel of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, 625 Montgomery Ave., Bryn Mawr. Interment will be private.

Memorial donations may be made to Plays and Players, 1714 Delancey Place, Phila., Pa. 19103.