Oscar Profile #150: Miriam Hopkins

Born October 18, 1902 to wealthy parents in Savannah, Georgia, Miriam Hopkins attended the finest schools before becoming a chorus girl at the age of 20. On Broadway first in musicals, then dramatic roles, she had her first starring role on screen in 1930’s Fast and Loose featuring Carole Lombard and Frank Morgan but attracted much more attention in Ernst Lubitsch’s 1931 musical, The Smiling Lieutenant co-starring Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert.

Hopkins’ startling portrayal of the prostitute Ivy opposite Fredric March in Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 film of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was cut considerably by the censors, but she still managed to earn her share of kudos. Her performance in the Lubitsch’s 1932 film Trouble in Paradise opposite Herbert Marshall established her as a major star. She had another major success opposite both Fredric March and Gary Cooper in Lubitsch’s 1933 film, Design for Living.

Her portrayal of the title character in Mamoulian’s 1935 film Becky Sharp based on Thackaray’s Vanity Fair was the first film produced in full three-strip Technicolor. It brought her what would be her only Oscar nomination.

Hopkins starred along with Merle Oberon and Joel McCrea in William Wyler’s 1936 film version of Lillian Hellman’s controversial play, The Children’s Hour retitled These Three in which the play’s lesbian theme was changed to an illicit heterosexual one. She would play the aunt of the character she played in the film in its remake, also directed by Wyler, a quarter of a century later.

Married four times, Hopkins’ third husband was director Anatole Litvak whom Hopkins suspected of having an affair with Bette Davis during the filming of 1938’s The Sisters. This undermined the actress’s animosity toward Davis who would play her cousin in Edmund Goulding’s 1939 film of Zoe Atkins’ Pulitzer Prize winning play, The Old Maid in which the two characters had an uneasy relationship over several decades. She and Litvak would divorce before the end of the year. She and Davis would co-star again as friends turned to bitter enemies in Vincent Sherman’s 1943 film, Old Acquantaince which marked the end of Hopkins’ star career.

Off the screen until William Wyler cast her as Olivia de Havilland’s aunt in 1949’s The Heiress, Hopkins would make only a handful of films thereafter, most notably as Gene Tierney’s mother in Mitchell Leisen’s 1951 comedy, The Mating Season; Laurence Olivier’s wife in Wyler’s 1952 film of Theodore Dreiser’s Carrie starring Jennifer Jones and as Shirley MacLaine’s aunt in Wyler’s 1961 remake of These Three filmed under the original title of The Children’s Hour.

Active on stage and TV in her later years, Hopkins returned to the big screen for one last time as the star of 1970’s Savage Intruder, a Sunset Boulevard rip-off.

Miriam Hopkins died of a heart attack nine days before her 70th birthday on October 9, 1972.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1931), directed by Rouben Mamoulian

Mamoulian’s film of Robert Louis Stevenson’s enduring masterwork is the best of numerous versions of the novel. Fredric March’s on screen transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde would be enough to ensure the film’s reputation but it is much more than that. A worldwide sensation, U.S. audiences were robbed of most of Hopkins’ portrayal of the prostitute Ivy including the classic seduction scene in which she slowly rolls her stockings down. Her on-screen time is said to have been reduced to five minutes in the version American audiences of the day were permitted to see, yet even that five minutes was enough to convince filmgoers she had something special. Fortunately for posterity we have her entire performance on DVD.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932), directed by Ernst Lubitsch

This sly, sophisticated comedy was one of three films Hopkins made for Lubitsch within a span of three years. She was the princess given lessons in seduction by her husband’s (Maurice Chevalier) mistress (Claudette Colbert) in the earlier The Smiling Lieutenant and she was part of the manage-a-trois that included Fredric March and Gary Cooper in the later Design for Living. This, however, is the one that most people are familiar with. Hopkins is the jealous girlfriend of con artist Herbert Marshall out to steal the fortune of Kay Francis. The witty script keeps you guessing to the end which one he will end up with.

THE OLD MAID (1939), directed by Edmund Goulding

It’s no secret that Hopkins and Bette Davis couldn’t stand one another, but they made two films together in a five year span in which both were used to good advantage. Davis has the title role in this luminous adaptation of Zoe Atkins’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play as the woman whose daughter born out of wedlock is raised by her cousin as her own. Hopkins plays the cousin who must also make sacrifices. A sensational Jane Byran plays the grown daughter.

Davis and Hopkins’ follow-up film, Old Acquaintance has Davis playing a critically acclaimed author who fumes over former friend/pulp writer Hopkins’ success. The two are at their delicious bitchiest. Hopkins’ last starring role was later reprised by Candice Bergen while Jacqueline Bisset filled in for Davis in George Cukor’s 1983 remake, Rich and Famous, his swan song.

THE HEIRESS (1949), directed by William Wyler

Hopkins returned after a six year absence from the screen to portray Olivia de Havilland’s talkative aunt in this film version of the play based on Henry James’ Washington Square.

Hopkins holds her own in the film for which de Havilland won her second Oscar as the shy, plain daughter of a bully; Ralph Richardson his first nomination as her tyrannical father and Montgomery Clift an important role on his way to major stardom as de Havilland’s conniving suitor.

THE CHILDREN’S HOUR (1961), directed by William Wyler

Hopkins had the rare, but not unprecedented, task of playing a minor role in the remake of one of her best remembered films, 1936’s These Three in which a brat, Oscar nominated Bonita Granville, spreads a malicious lie about private school teacher Hopkins involved in late night improprieties with the school’s doctor (Joel McCrea) who is engaged to her business partner and fellow teacher (Merle Oberon). The lie is then spread by the grandmother of the brat (Alma Kruger) while Hopkins’ aunt (Catherine Doucet) frets. In the original play and this then daring remake, the lie is about a clandestine lesbian relationship between the two women played by Audrey Hepburn in Oberon’s role and Shirley MacLaine in Hopkins’. James Garner has McCrea’s role; Fay Bainter in an Oscar nominated performance has Kruger’s and Hopkins has Doucet’s in her last major film.