Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#40362
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Martha Wentworth represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Martha is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Martha Wentworth appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Martha. One Hundred and One Dalmatians is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for fantasy, family, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Wolfgang Reitherman, Clyde Geronimi, Otto Preminger and others, Martha Wentworth helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) as Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice) · The Sword in the Stone (1963) as Madam Mim / Old Lady Squirrel (voice) · Waterloo Bridge (1940) as Tart on Bridge at the End (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #40362 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1935–1963
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Waterloo Bridge
Most frequent director
Wolfgang Reitherman
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Wolfgang Reitherman
Most common genre
Animation
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 12m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.7
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1960s
7.3 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. The Sword in the Stone, One Hundred and One Dalmatians — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Toby Tortoise Returns, I Love to Singa, Who Killed Cock Robin?.
Most productive era
1940s
4 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.82 films | 6.81 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.91 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.43 films | — | — | 7.31 film |
| Crime | 6.51 film | 6.91 film | 6.81 film | — |
| Romance | — | 7.01 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 6.51 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jenny Wren (voice) (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1961One Hundred and One Dalmatians
7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Madam Mim / Old Lady Squirrel (voice).
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
10 of 10 films
as Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice)
Directed by Clyde Geronimi
as Madam Mim / Old Lady Squirrel (voice)
Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman
as Tart on Bridge at the End (uncredited)
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
as Sara
Directed by Orson Welles
Directed by Otto Preminger
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice)
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice) gives Martha Wentworth a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Madam Mim / Old Lady Squirrel (voice)
The Sword in the Stone (1963)
Performance score7.3
The Sword in the Stone asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Madam Mim / Old Lady Squirrel (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tart on Bridge at the End (uncredited)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Performance score6.9
Waterloo Bridge asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tart on Bridge at the End (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sara
The Stranger (1946)
Performance score6.8
The Stranger asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sara is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice)
Start here. One Hundred and One Dalmatians is the clearest statement of what Martha Wentworth does — accessible, 79 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Martha at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
A deliberate change of key after One Hundred and One Dalmatians — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Stranger (1946)
A deliberate change of key after Waterloo Bridge — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Keeps the crime register of The Stranger but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Sword in the Stone (1963)
A deliberate change of key after The Man with the Golden Arm — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Hand
Director
1 film together
Notably Who Killed Cock Robin?
Tex Avery
Director
1 film together
Notably I Love to Singa
Wilfred Jackson
Director
1 film together
Notably Toby Tortoise Returns
Mervyn LeRoy
Director
1 film together
Notably Waterloo Bridge
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Zoltan Korda
Director
1 film together
Notably Jungle Book
Orson Welles
Director
1 film together
Notably The Stranger
Otto Preminger
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man with the Golden Arm
Clyde Geronimi
Director
1 film together
Notably One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Wolfgang Reitherman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sword in the Stone
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Clyde Geronimi
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One Hundred and One DalmatiansWolfgang Reitherman
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Sword in the StoneMervyn LeRoy
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Waterloo BridgeOrson Welles
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The StrangerOtto Preminger
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Man with the Golden ArmVictor Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeTex Avery
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Love to SingaDavid Hand
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Who Killed Cock Robin?Zoltan Korda
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jungle BookWilfred Jackson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Toby Tortoise ReturnsSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Waterloo Bridge
as Tart on Bridge at the End (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Sword in the Stone
as Madam Mim / Old Lady Squirrel (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
as Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Waterloo Bridge
as Tart on Bridge at the End (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
as Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice)
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Martha Wentworth has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
28 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Animation Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in animation, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Sword in the Stone
as Madam Mim / Old Lady Squirrel (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Stranger
as Sara
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Sword in the Stone
as Madam Mim / Old Lady Squirrel (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Jungle Book
as White Hood (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
as Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
as Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
I Love to Singa
as Mother (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
as Nanny / Queenie / Lucy (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
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Edward Norton
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Jamie Harris
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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