Florence Reed Florence Reed Florence Reed (January 10, 1883 – November 21, 1967) was an American stage and film actress. She is remembered for several outstanding stage productions, including "The Shanghai Gesture", "The Lullaby", "The Yellow Ticket" and "The Wanderer". Her best remembered movie role was as Miss Havisham in the 1934 production of "Great Expectations". In this version, however, Miss Havisham was changed from a completely insane woman to an eccentric, who did not wear her wedding veil constantly, and who dies peacefully rather than as a result of suffering burns in a fire. In the 1950s Reed performed in several
Miss Havisham dressing, Miss Havisham received a letter from Compeyson and realised he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar. Humiliated and heartbroken, Miss Havisham suffered a mental breakdown and remained alone in her decaying mansion Satis House – never removing her wedding dress, wearing only one shoe, leaving the wedding breakfast and cake uneaten on the table, and allowing only a few people to see her. She even had the clocks in her mansion stopped at twenty minutes to nine: the exact time when she had received Compeyson's letter. Time passed and Miss Havisham had her lawyer,