Oscar Profile #200: Teresa Wright

Born October 27, 1918, (Muriel) Teresa Wright became interested in acting after seeing Helen Hayes in Broadway’s Victoria Regina in 1936. Following her high school graduation in 1938 she was on Broadway herself as understudy to Martha Scott and Dorothy McGuire in Our Town. She took over the lead when Scott went to Hollywood to make the film version. She then originated the ingénue role in 1939’ Life With Father, the role later played by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1947 film version. It was in that production that Samuel Goldwyn discovered her and signed her to a five year contract.

Wright’s first three film roles – as Bette Davis’ impressionable daughter in William Wyler’s The Little Foxes, Greer Garson’s forthright daughter-in-law in Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver and Mrs. Lou Gehrig in Sam Wood’s The Pride of the Yankees all earned her Oscar nominations capped by a win for Mrs. Miniver. She was the first, and to date only, actress to be so honored. Her three acting nominations in two years was a record she held for 51 years until Emma Thompson tied her with her two 1993 nominations for The Remains of the Day and In the Name of the Father after having won Best Actress of 1992 for Howards End.

The young actress had two more iconic 1940s roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt and Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives. She was also memorable in Irving Reis’ memorable 1948 romantic drama, Enchantment.

She started out the 1950s in a strong role opposite Marlon Brando making his film debut in Elia Kazan’s The Men but by 1953 she was already playing character roles as Spencer Tracy’s wife and Jean Simmons’ mother in George Cukor’s The Actress based on the early life of Ruth Gordon.

Much on TV for the remainder of the decade, she had what would be her last starring roleon screen in 1956’s The Search for Bridey Murphy. Back on Broadway in 1967, she originated the role of the wife in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs that would be played by Dorothy McGuire in the 1960 film version. On TV in 1959, she originated the role of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker for which she received the first of three Emmy nominations opposite Patty McCormack as the young Helen Keller.

In the 1960s she originated the role of the sister in Broadway’s I Never Sang for My Father later played in the film version by Estelle Parsons. In the 1970s she was in the highly regarded revivals of Ah, Wilderness! and Death of a Salesman and had a memorable role on screen in James Ivory’s Roseland in 1977.

In the 1980s she had small roles not really worthy of her in Somewhere in Time and The Good Mother but in 1997 Fancis Ford Coppola gave her a final character part of great charm in The Rainmaker.

Teresa Wright was married to writer Niven Busch from 1942 to 1952 with whom she had two children. She was married to playwright from 1959 to 1978. Although divorced, they remained close friends until her death in 2005 at 86. Anderson died in 2009 at 91.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1942), directed by Sam Wood

Wright received an unprecedented three Oscar nominations in two years for her first three films: The Little Foxes; Mrs. Miniver and The Pride of the Yankees. Unforgettable in all three, she may have won the Oscar for Mrs. Miniver but it was her portrayal of baseball great Lou Gehrig’s wife in The Pride of the Yankees, a nomination she lost to Mrs. Miniver star, Greer Garson, that brought her life-long affection and admiration.

In 1998 her grandson, producer Jonah Smith (Requiem for a Dream; Waking Life), accompanied her to Yankee Stadium where she threw out the first ball of the season. In July, 2005 when the roll call of former Yankee players who died within the year was called Wright’s name was mentioned along with players in tribute to her performance in the film.

SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943), Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Wright had one of her best roles as the admiring niece of a man who turns out to be a serialkiller in Hitchcock’s own favorite of his many films.

Wright and Joseph Cotton as her uncle are at the top of their game and are ably supported by Patricia Collinge, Wright’s aunt in The Little Foxes, as her mother here; Henry Travers as her father and Hume Cronyn as a talkative boarder.

Filmed mainly in Santa Rosa, California, this was one of the few on-location films of the war years.

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946), directed by William Wyler

Wyler’s post-war masterpiece succeeds on many levels, not the least of which is its casting.

Myrna Loy and Fredric March receive top billing as Wright’s parents and March and Harold Russell won Oscars for their performances, but for many, Wright and Dana Andrews as the airman reduced to returning to work as a soda jerk after the war, are the film’s heart and soul.

Wright’s natural forthrightness comes through loud and clear as the sergeant’s daughter who falls in love with the married airman cheated on by his faithless wife (Virginia Mayo). The final scene in which Wright and Andrews make eye contact during Russell and Cathy O’Donnell’s wedding remains one of the most haunting finales in film history.

ROSELAND (1977), directed by James Ivory

Wright stars in the opening sequence of this film comprised of three stories set in the landmark titled dance hall. She plays a widow who finds the perfect dance partner in a widower she initially despises. She and Lou Jacobi make the characters memorable as do Chistopher Walken; Joan Copeland and Helen Gallagher in the middle section and Lilia Skala in the third.

The film may be equal to the sum of its parts, but those parts are all quite memorable in their own right, especially Wright and Jacobi’s.

THE RAINMAKER (1997), directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Coppola’s film is one of the better ones made a John Grisham novel.

Matt Damon had a second major hit with this one following closely on the heels of Good Will Hunting. The all-star supporting cast included Claire Danes; Danny De Vito; Jon Voight; Mary Kay Place; Dean Stockwell; Mickey Rourke and Wright as Damon’s charming landlady. It wasn’t a great part, but it was the best that she given in a long time.

Film fans wouldn’t see her again until the 2003 Oscars when she made her final appearance at the 75th Annual Academy Awards.