Annalee Jefferies

may be Houston's best actress — and its most influential.

Excerpted from houston.sidewalk.com (January 8th, 1998)

The Front Row - Leading Lady

By Megan Halverson, Houston. Sidewalk


Annalee Jefferies as Marion in Robert Wilson's 1992 Alley production of "Danton's Death." This scene was a long, slow progression across the stage. "I was thinking: yoga, yoga, yoga," says the actress. "And lots of breathing."

For the past four years, Alley actress Annalee Jefferies has hosted a New Year's Eve party that draws a warm crowd of Houston's professional actors to her neatly appointed Montrose home. Among those who've made the event a tradition include fellow company members, such as John Feltch, along with a group of younger actors who relish their invitations the way they would a leading role. The party's tradition — this year, friends leapt in to cook and help prepare, as Jefferies is wearing a leg cast — bears witness to Jefferies' reputation as the touchstone in Houston's acting community. Watching her conduct daily business yields the same impression, from answering the phone in her sun room to speak with one of the many high school students she coaches (five have gone on to Juilliard) to chatting with her friend Hal Holbrook's secretary, arranging for her tickets to his show in Galveston this weekend. Throw in her frequent performances at the Alley and other notable regional theaters, and it is easy enough to see why she's the first lady of the Texas stage.

For anyone who has seen Jefferies onstage, it comes as something of a shock to find out that she's petite. Perhaps it's her dead-on sense of character, or her uncanny ability to suit a role physically — from dressed-to-kill socialite to brain-damaged battered wife — that encourages the illusion of towering height in a woman who stands 5 foot 3. Even offstage, dragging along a cast on one leg, Jefferies is still a recognizable force of talent. And all that before you hear her whiskey bass voice.


As Elly May in Long Wharf Theater's 1984 production of Erskine Caldwell's "Tobacco Road."

For those who haven't seen this powerhouse perform in her 12 years in Houston, Jefferies is the kind of actor that nearly every girl in drama school dreams of becoming. She is, without fail, cast in leading roles. She has played, among many others, Tony Kushner's delusional Mormon housewife in "Angels in America," Shakespeare's Cleopatra, Georg Buchner's Marion in "Danton's Death," Georgia O'Keeffe in Eb Thomas' "Alfred Stieglitz Loves O'Keeffe," Tennessee Williams' Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Sam Shepard's Beth in "Lie of the Mind." In all these roles, Jefferies is noted for her ability to divine the soul of a character, leaving it to hover in the audience's memory long after the theater is empty. With so much talent, it's easy to wonder why she chose to stay in Houston. The answer is complicated, and a bit surprising.

Jefferies is a Texas native, born in Houston and raised, for the most part, on a ranch her father managed outside Angleton. Her mother, a San Antonio "sort of" socialite, saw to it that Jefferies and her brother knew there was more to life than chasing down wayward cattle after school. Regular trips to the ballet, as well as homespun theatricals on the ranch, focused Jefferies' talent early. (Though it wasn't aimed exactly for theater; her first love was song, which she performed alongside her brother.)

Still, after taking into account her adventurous upbringing and obvious talent, it's hard to say where Jefferies' drive comes from. One of her rarest qualities as an actress is that — like her favorite collaborator, director Michael Wilson — she embraces the entire process of theater, from deep work on production concepts to spending time after rehearsals and performances thanking the people who light and dress her. Her dedication as a performer is evident in even the slightest roles: as a crotch-grabbing Mametian director in David Ives' "Mere Mortals" or as a tightly wound high school English teacher in A.R. Gurney's doggy farce, "Sylvia." (Indeed, the one thing I remember from that production is the scene in which Jefferies kneels in front of the set's couch and produces a rubber ball, holding it aloft with a delicate twist of her arm like a crown of laurels.)

Her stamina — she makes frequent appearances on "Walker, Texas Ranger" and guest-starred on "L.A. Law" and has appeared in such films as "No Mercy" and "Violets Are Blue" — is most likely a combination of things: her training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and her genuine love for the theater-making process. Colleagues note her ability to look at a photograph and instantly recall passages of dialogue and blocking. And to say that she's fiery about her art is an understatement. During a particularly spooky Alley performance of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," in which Jefferies played Nurse Ratched, an audience member cried "Kill her!" during blackout. At the curtain call, Jefferies assumed the wicked character's rigid posture, pointed her authoritative finger at the audience and growled, "Who said that?" The audience drew back in the fear that Ratched might tear through the aisles, interrogating each one of them (or forcing them to take little paper cups of medicine).


Pace Webb, Jefferies' 15-year-old daughter, has an interest in acting.

Aside from the rich array of roles Jefferies has played at the Alley, her devotion to family ranks high on the list of reasons why the actress hasn't fled to more ambitious climes. In fact, she left New York City with her 5-year-old daughter, Pace, and then-husband, Bob Webb, to return to Houston in 1986, despite a good run of roles on and off-Broadway. The financial anxiety of living in the city, paired with her desire to raise Pace around extended family, won out over her still-budding career. Though she and Webb eventually divorced, they continue to share responsibility for their daughter, and — in the spirit of her favorite Williams character, Blanche DuBois — the actress hung on and kept working on national projects in addition to her Alley schedule.

Last year, in an effort to keep herself busy and to offer a bit of her own success to the freshmen in her craft, Jefferies began ActorSource, an actors' workshop group. It's open to drama students and actors, but participation is limited to professional actors because, as Jefferies says, "They need the support the most." The workshop, which meets at DiverseWorks on Monday evenings, focuses on a variety of acting techniques and allows professionals the opportunity to soak themselves in a process with the guidance of a master teacher.

As she flips through her large collection of production photos pointing out various big names in both theater and film (Beth Henley, Gerald Freedman, Michael O'Keefe and Bob Foxworth), Jefferies also pauses to explain an old photo of her daughter, dressed up in one of her costumes. Pace, who's now 15, is a student at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and her interest in theater is something her mother approaches cautiously. "She's so talented in so many different ways," Jefferies says. "I think we're going to push a good, formal education." Once Pace leaves for college, Jefferies says, it'll be time to take stock. "I want to do Hedda Gabler," she says, and there's no doubt that she will.

For more photos from Annalee Jefferies' career, click here.