RIP Teresa Wright

Teresa Wright is dead at age 86.

"Teresa who?"

Take a seat.

Newday has the story:

Teresa Wright, the willowy actress who starred opposite Gary Cooper and Marlon Brando and won a supporting Academy Award in 1942 for "Mrs. Miniver," has died. She was 86.

Wright died Sunday of a heart attack at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, her daughter, Mary-Kelly Busch, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Wright's career skyrocketed after her first film, "The Little Foxes," which brought her an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress of 1941. The following year she was honored with two nominations: lead actress as the wife of Lou Gehrig in "The Pride of the Yankees" and supporting actress as Greer Garson's daughter-in-law in the wartime saga "Mrs. Miniver."

She also starred in three other classics: Alfred Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" in 1943; Brando's first film, "The Men," in 1950; and the multiple Oscar winner "The Best Years of Our Lives" in 1946.

That's her in "Best Years Of Our Lives", on the left. It's the essential post-World-War II movie; one of the last great films of the studio system, and one of Wiliam Wyler's best.

I've always been a huuuuuuuge Teresa Wright fan. I don't know exactly why - I'm not very literate about my appreciation for actors. But I never saw her in a role that didn't affect me in some way - especially "Best Years..." and "Miniver". Sheila O'Malley is articulate about these things, fortunately:

What I like about Teresa Wright is that she seemed to have one of the most necessary qualities for any long career: self-knowledge. And it shows up in her performances. She's a great example of that - other actresses (or actors) may get talked into doing things they feel isn't right for them, may get big heads from flattery ("Of course you're as beautiful as Lana Turner!!", etc.), and because of all this - make grave judgments in error, in terms of how their image is managed, or what projects they appear in. Teresa Wright was usually well cast, and a lot of that has to do with her self-knowledge. She knew what she could do, and what she shouldn't attempt.

I always thought of her as an American Ingrid Bergman, in many ways;a versatile, talented actress, lovely in a quiet but captivating way.

Reel Classics has a wonderful bio, and Newsday has the obit of record so far:

Wright's lovely face, quiet manner and dramatic skill made her a popular leading actress in the 1940s and early '50s. She appeared opposite Cooper in "The Pride of the Yankees" and "Casanova Brown," Robert Mitchum in "Pursued," David Niven in "Enchantment," Lew Ayres in "The Capture" and Cornel Wilde in "California Conquest."

She had a personal style that also stood out, in an era of studio players:

From the beginning of her Hollywood career, Wright displayed an independence that rankled her boss, the imperious Hollywood producer, Sam Goldwyn. Goldwyn fired her in 1948, claiming she was "uncooperative" for refusing to go to New York to publicize one of her films.

The actress expressed no regret about losing her $5,000-a-week contract. She claimed illness and added: "The type of contract between players and producers is, I feel, antiquated in form and abstract in concept. ... We have no privacies which producers cannot invade, they trade us like cattle, boss us like children."

Wright stood out as an anomaly in a Hollywood era when glamour was demanded of actresses. She appeared on-screen as the dutiful daughter and supportive wife, never the seductress.

"I'm just not the glamour type," she admitted in a 1950 interview. "Glamour girls are born, not made. And the real ones can be glamorous even if they don't wear magnificent clothes. I'll bet Lana Turner would look glamorous in anything."

When a studio asked her to pose for "cheesecake" -- the term for photos in bathing suits or other scanty attire -- she declined.

"I argued that I didn't have any of the attributes to pose for cheesecake," she said. "I said I would have to make good on my acting ability, which was the only attribute I could offer."

I'm at a loss for anything else to say.

Posted by Mitch at March 8, 2005 06:43 PM | TrackBack