Anna Lee - Personal Life

Personal Life

Anna Lee was born in Ightham, Kent, England, the daughter of a clergyman who encouraged her desire to act.

She married her first husband, the director Robert Stevenson, in 1934 and moved to Hollywood in 1939. They had two daughters, Venetia and Caroline. Venetia Stevenson, an actress as well, was married to Don Everly of the Everly Brothers and has three children, Edan Everly, Erin Everly and Stacy Everly. Lee and Stevenson divorced in March 1944 with both daughters staying with their father.

Lee met her second husband, George Stafford, as the pilot of the plane on her USO tour during World War II. They married on 8 June 1944 and had three sons, John, Stephen and Tim Stafford. Tim is an actor better known by his stage name of Jeffrey Byron. Lee and Stafford divorced in 1964.

Lee's final marriage was to novelist Robert Nathan (The Bishop's Wife, Portrait of Jennie), on 5 April 1970, and to whom she was married until his death in 1985.

Lee was the goddaughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and lifelong friend of his daughter, Dame Jean Conan Doyle. Her brother Sir John Winnifrith was a senior British civil servant who became permanent secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture.

In the 1930s, Lee occupied a house at 49 Bankside in London; she was later interviewed by writer Gillian Tindall for a book written about the address, The House by the Thames, released in 2006. Since first built in 1710, the house had served as a home for coal merchants, an office, a boarding house, a hangout for derelicts and finally once again a private residence in the 1900s. The house is listed in tour guides as a famous residence and has been variously claimed as possibly being home to Christopher Wren during the construction of St. Paul's Cathedral, and previously claimed residents included Catherine of Aragon and William Shakespeare.