Career
On 17 September 1883, Robison became an actress in Hoop of Gold at the Brooklyn Grand Opera House stage. Her name was misspelled "Robson" in the billing, and she used it from that point forward "for good luck". Over the next several decades, she flourished on the stage as a comedian and character actress. Her success was due partly to her affiliation with powerful manager and producer Charles Frohman and the Theatrical Syndicate. She established her own touring theatrical company in 1911.
Robson's initial appearances in film date back as early as 1903 or 1904 with uncredited roles in Edison short film productions. She appeared as herself in a cameo in the 1915 silent film How Molly Made Good; which was probably her first feature film and starred in the 1916 silent film A Night Out, an adaptation of the play she co-wrote, The Three Lights. She picked up another film role in 1916, appearing in the Marguerite Clark version of Snow White, and in 1919, made a guest appearance in the Jack Pickford In Wrong. Respected and firmly established in the theatre, Robson's fame and recognition allowed her to appear in films uncredited. As so many silent films are missing or lost, she may have appeared in many more.
In 1927, she went to Hollywood, where she began a successful film career as a senior woman, often in comedic roles and nearly rivaling her longtime friend Marie Dressler. Among her starring roles was in The She-Wolf (1931) as a miserly millionaire businesswoman, based on real-life miser Hetty Green.
She also starred in the final segment of the anthology film If I Had a Million (1932) as a rest-home resident who gets a new lease on life when she receives a $1,000,000 check from a dying business tycoon. She played the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1933), Countess Vronsky in Anna Karenina (1935), Aunt Elizabeth in Bringing Up Baby (1938), Aunt Polly in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), and a sharp-tongued Granny in A Star Is Born (1937). She was top-billed as late as 1940, starring in Granny Get Your Gun at 82. Her last film was 1942's Joan of Paris.
