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The daughter of a Supreme Court judge, Phyllis Thaxter followed the example of her mother, a former actress. Thaxter made her first stage appearance, at the Ogunquit (Maine) Playhouse. In her teens, she received on-the-job training with the Montreal Repertory. On Broadway from 1938, she appeared in such popular plays as What a Life!, There Shall Be No Night, and Claudia. Signed to an MGM contract in 1944, Phyllis was often wasted in traditional faithful-wife roles, but on occasion was permitted a wider acting range in such parts as the schizophrenic heroine of Arch Oboler's Bewitched (1944). While at MGM, Phyllis married James Aubrey, who later ascended to the presidency of CBS-TV (and still later, took over MGM); the union lasted until 1962, producing a daughter, actress Skye Aubrey. Sidelined by an attack of infantile paralysis in 1952, Thaxter made a slow, steady stage, screen and TV comeback in character parts, frequently accepting roles that would challenge her physical limitations. In 1978, after a long absence from the screen, Phyllis Thaxter was cast as Martha Kent, mother of Clark Kent, in Superman: The Movie. She made her last on-camera appearance in a 1992 episode of Murder, She Wrote.