Anne Shirley - Film and Television

Film and Television

The first filmed appearance of Anne Shirley was in the 1919 silent film, Anne of Green Gables, in which the role was played by Mary Miles Minter. The film was directed by William Desmond Taylor, whose later, unsolved, murder became one of Hollywood's biggest scandals. As of 2011, no prints of this silent film adaptation are known to survive.

In the 1934 adaption of Anne of Green Gables, Anne Shirley was portrayed by Dawn O'Day, who later adopted the character's name as her own stage name. She reprised the role in Anne of Windy Poplars, a 1940 film adaption.

Anne was portrayed by Kim Braden in two BBC mini-series in the early 1970s, based upon the books Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea

Anne was portrayed by Megan Follows in three of the four CBC Television film adaptions by Kevin Sullivan: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, and Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story; the third film is an original story not based on any of Montgomery's work (and, indeed, it contradicts the chronology of the novels by featuring a 20-something Anne during World War I). Sullivan's fourth film, Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, features Barbara Hershey as a middle-aged Anne looking back on her early years and Hannah Endicott-Douglas as a young Anne before arriving at Green Gables.

In 1979, Japan's World Masterpiece Theater produced Akage no Anne. Later, in 2009, the prequel novel Before Green Gables was adapted into an anime, Kon'nichiwa Anne: Before Green Gables, in which Anne also appears as the central character.

In 2005, Sullivan produced an animated reimagining of the story, Anne: Journey to Green Gables, with McKenzie Sullivan providing the voice of Anne.