She was the first actress to be invested as a DBE (Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 1918 King's New Year Honours List for services to hospital work during World War I.

During the 1940s she starred in three films for which the leading lady won a Best Actress Oscar: Joan Fontaine for Suspicion (1941), Greer Garson for Mrs. Miniver (1942), and Ingrid Bergman for Gaslight (1944).

First toured on stage in the United States in 1895 with Sir Henry Irving.

Her father, Alfred Whitty, was a British journalist-publisher.

Appears in four Best Picture Oscar nominees: Suspicion (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Madame Curie (1943) and Gaslight (1944). The films were released in consecutive years from 1941 to 1944. Mrs. Miniver was the only winner in this category.

Mother of actress-director Margaret Webster, who died in 1972.

Short biography in "Actresses of a Certain Character: Forty Familiar Hollywood Faces from the Thirties to the Fifties" by Axel Nissen.

She has appeared in three films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Mrs. Miniver (1942), Lassie Come Home (1943) and Gaslight (1944).

Sister-in-law of Annie Webster and A.E. George.

Daughter of William Alfred (1837-1876) and Mary Louisa (née Ashton) Whitty (1836-1894).