Born Ellen Hansen in Racine, Wisconsin. After 12 years as a script girl, she turned to acting. She played scores of character roles from the mid-1940s, typically as a fussy spinster or a busy-body. Memorable as the lovelorn aunt in I REMEMBER MAMA (1948), a role for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. Some of her notable subsequent films include LITTLE WOMEN, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG and MADAME BOVARY (all 1949), CAGED and THE GUNFIGHTER (both 1950), THE MATING SEASON and ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (both 1951), SHANE (1953), SABRINA (1954), STAGECOACH TO FURY (1956), VERTIGO (1958), VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET (1960), POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES (1962), THE CARETAKERS (1963), HUSH... HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964), THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN (1966), SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER (1971) and NAPOLEON AND SAMANTHA (1972). From 1972 to 1979 she played Grandma Esther Walton in 130 episodes of the TV series "The Waltons," for which she received three Emmy Awards (1973, 1974, 1975). In March of 2000, she was left out of the yearly "In Memoriam" segment of the Oscar® Awards telecast. Corby had really only played small bit parts in motion pictures for twenty years, before she landed her recurring role on "The Waltons". The Academy choose instead to memorialize another bit player in films, Henry Jones, who had never been nominated for any of his screen performances.  Nominated for Supporting Actress 1948: I REMEMBER MAMA 1 nomination