Oscar Profile #294: Jane Wyatt

Born August 12, 1910 in Mahwah, New Jersey to one of America’s most distinguished families, Jane Wyatt, who was raised in Manhattan from the age of three months, could trace her American lineage on mother’s side back to 1638. One of her ancestors on her mother’s side was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. One of her ancestors on father’s side was a signatory on the Constitution. Eleanor Roosevelt was a distant cousin. Her father was an investment broker on Wall Street, her mother a drama critic for the Catholic World. She would meet her husband of 65 years at a fundraiser for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1928 campaign for Governor of New York.

Educated at the prestigious Barnard College, Wyatt made her Broadway debut in 1931’s Give Me Yesterday and would appear on the Broadway stage periodically through the early 1950s. She made her film debut in James Whale’s One More River in 1934. Later that year she starred as Estella opposite Phillips Holmes as Pip in Stuart Walker’s film of Great Expectations. Her best remembered film of the decade was Frank Capra’s 1937 production of Lost Horizon in which she starred opposite Ronald Colman.

Wyatt’s early to mid-1940s films included Clifford Odets’ None But the Lonely Heart, Andrew Stone’s The Bachelor’s Daughters and two 1947 Elia Kazan films, Boomerang! and Gentleman’s Agreement. In October of 1947, the fierce Democrat was part of the Committee for the First Amendment, a group of non-Communist New Deal liberal Democrats that flew to Washington in support of the Hollywood Ten during the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The group, which was led by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, also included Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Billy Wilder, Judy Garland, Vincente Minnelli, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye, Burt Lancaster, Dorothy Dandridge, Frank Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson among others.

Although Wyatt’s film career was never stellar, she did manage to stand out in her atypical performances as Dick Powell’s betrayed wife in 1948’s Pitfall and of all things, a femme fatale in 1950’s The Man Who Cheated Himself before turning primarily to TV. From 1954 to 1960 she starred opposite Robert Young in what would become the best loved TV comedy series of the 1950s, Father Knows Best, earning three consecutive Emmys from 1958-1960 for her portrayal of stay-at-home mother Margaret Anderson. She later guest-starred in just about any TV series you can think of, most notably as Leonard Nimoy’s mother in a 1967 episode of Star Trek, a role she reprised in the 1986 film Star Trek: The Voyage Home, directed by Nimoy.

Wyatt retired from acting in 1992 after a guest-star appearance on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. She was James Cameron’s first choice to play Old Rose in 1997’s Titanic, but declined the offer because she wanted to remain in retirement. The role was played instead by her contemporary, Gloria Stuart, who received an Oscar nomination for her performance.

Jane Wyatt died on October 20, 2006 at the age of 96.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LOST HORIZON (1937), directed by Frank Capra

Frank Capra’s film from James Hilton’s novel was mostly faithful to the source material, but Jane Wyatt’s character was added to the film to give star Ronald Colman a love interest. She’s marvelous in a more substantial role than she usually had in films but it’s Colman as the would-be successor to the dying 200-year-old High Lama, Sam Jaffe in very effective old age make-up as the High Lama, H.B. Warner Oscar nominated as the assistant to the High Lama, John Howard as Colman’s rebellious brother and Margo as the young girl who makes a tragic decision that you remember more.

GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT (1947), directed by Elia Kazan

This long dated Oscar winner stills packs a wallop in its performances. Gregory Peck as the WASP reporter pretending to be Jewish, Dorothy McGuire as his troubled fiancé, John Garfield as his Jewish friend, Celeste Holm in an Oscar-winning performance as a sharp-tongued fashion writer, Anne Revere as Peck’s wise old mother, Dean Stockwell as his son, June Havoc as his secretary and Sam Jaffe as an Albert Einstein stand-in are all memorable, and so is Jane Wyatt in her small but unforgettable role as McGuire’s bigoted sister who lives in one of those communities protected by the “gentleman’s agreement”.

PITFALL (1948), directed by André De Toth

One of the best films noir of the 1940s, this independently produced film did not have the backing of an MGM, Warner Bros. or Fox to keep it in the public eye, but now that it has been restored by the UCLA Film Archives it should find a larger audience. Dick Powell as a compromised insurance investigator and Lizabeth Scott as the femme fatale who compromises him are the stars, but third-billed Jane Wyatt is the one to watch as Powell’s dutiful wife and mother of little Jimmy Hunt. She’s Powell’s loyal supporter even after he admits to murder, but when he confesses to his relationship with Scott, look out!

NEVER TOO LATE (1965), directed by Bud Yorkin

This is one of the rare Broadway comedies in which mid-level stars Paul Ford and Maureen O’Sullivan got to repeat their roles in the film version over bigger names such as Spencer Tracy and Rosalind Russell, who were expected to be given the starring roles. Ford and O’Sullivan are hilarious as the middle-aged couple about to have a baby after their grown daughter Connie Stevens marries Jim Hutton with whom Ford doesn’t get along. Henry Jones and O’Sullivan’s real-life friend, Jane Wyatt play their best friends. It would be her last big screen role for more than twenty years.

STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986), directed by Leonard Nimoy

Jane Wyatt first played Amanda, the human mother of Leonard Nimoy’s half-Vulcan, half-human Mr. Spock in Journey to Babel, a 1967 episode of the original series in which she was billed as Miss Jane Wyatt in deference to the high esteem in which she was still held as the co-star of the beloved Father Knows Best series of the 1950s. Her reprise of the role in this, her last film, was brief but welcome. Having retired in 1992, she turned down what surely would have been her most memorable big screen role as Old Rose in James Cameron’s Titanic, a role that went to her contemporary, Gloria Stuart.