Margaret Hamilton

(1902–1985), a Cleveland actress best remembered as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz, graduated from Hathaway Brown  in 1921. Her family wanted her to become a teacher, so she went to Wheelock Kindergarten Training School in Boston, where she acted in a production of Little Women. Returning to Cleveland, Hamilton taught at Hough Elementary School, then operated her own nursery for the Cleveland Hts. Presbyterian Church. She went to New York in 1922 to teach day school, but became enamored with the theater. She quit teaching, returned to Cleveland, and worked at the Cleveland Play House  from 1927 to 1930, meeting and marrying landscape architect Paul Meserve on 13 June 1931.

After the Play House, Hamilton did summer work in Massachusetts. Arthur Beckworth “discovered” Hamilton in a play entitled The Hallems. The Broadway version, called Another Language, was the surprise hit of 1932 and was made into a film with Hamilton and Helen Hayes, launching Hamilton’s Hollywood career. Because of her distinctive profile, however, her roles were never very diverse; she usually played aunts and spinsters. (Encycl. of Cleveland History)