Oscar Profile #115: Eleanor Parker

Born June 26, 1922 in Cedarville, Ohio, the youngest of three children to a mathematics teacher and his wife, Eleanor Jean Parker developed an early interest in acting. On stage from the age of 15, she twice turned down Hollywood offers for screen tests, wanting to finish high school and then college before starting a screen career. Tested by Warner Brothers in 1941, she was given a contract in two days and given a bit part in 1942’s They Died With Their Boots On. Her scenes were deleted prior to the film’s release. She had her first starring role in a major film as Walter Huston’s daughter in 1943’s Mission to Moscow. She received excellent notices opposite John Garfield in 1944’s Between Two Worlds and reached major stardom in 1945’s Pride of the Marines, again opposite Garfield.

Cast opposite Paul Henreid in the poorly received 1947 version of Of Human Bondage and Errol Flynn in the same year’s equally disastrous remake of Escape Me Never, she had a popular success opposite Ronald Reagan in 1948’s Voice of the Turtle in Margaret Sullavan’s famous stage role.

Parker never really developed a style of her own, but from 1950 through 1960, the actress starred in enough prestige films to make her mark as one of the most popular of her era.

First up was the 1950 women’s prison drama, Caged which brought her Best Actress honors at the Venice Film Festival and her first Oscar nomination. Subsequent fifties hits included 1951’s Detective Story which brought her a second Oscar nomination; 1952’s Scaramouche, easily her best comedic role opposite Stewart Granger; 1955’s The Man With the Golden Arm opposite Frank Sinatra and Interrupted Melody opposite Glenn Ford, the latter bringing her a third Oscar nomination; 1957’s Lizzie in which she played a woman with multiple personalities and 1959’s A Hole in the Head, Frank Capra’s penultimate film opposite Frank Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson.

Parker had one of her best roles opposite Robert Mitchum in 1960’s Home from the Hill after which it all went downhill fast. Seen mostly on TV in the early 1960s, her one major film during this period was 1961’s poorly received sequel, Return to Peyton Place in which she reprised Lana Turner’s role in the original. 1965’s box-office behemoth The Sound of Music brought her name recognition to a new generation, but did nothing for her career. He next two films were 1966’s laughably bad The Oscar and the same year’s even worse An American Dream. After that it was mostly on TV in mostly forgettable roles. She did have a good role in a 1986 episode of Murder, She Wrote but only made one appearance after that in a minor role in the 1991 TV movie Dead on the Money.

Married four times, Eleanor Parker had four children. Her last husband died in 2001. The actress who turned 90 on last birthday, lives in contented retirement in Palm Springs.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

CAGED (1950), directed by John Cromwell

Parker goes from doe-eyed innocent to hardened criminal in this, the best of the women’s prison films of the 1950s.

She witnesses her husband’s murder in a hold-up gone awry for which she is arrested, tried and found guilty as an accomplice. Finding she’s pregnant, her one hope is to be able to keep the baby, something that is denied her by the conventions of the time. Browbeaten by a heartless matron, the indomitable Hope Emerson, she grows ever more cynical to the point where she can’t be saved even by the well-meaning warden, an excellent Agnes Moorehead. Parker’s tour-de-force performance won her the Best Actress award of the Venice Film Festival and the first of her three Oscar nominations.

DETECTIVE STORY (1951), directed by William Wyler

Seen today, Wyler’s episodic day in the life of a police precinct squad room was considered pretty hot stuff in its day. Today the script would be rejected as too tame for TV, let alone the big screen.

Kirk Douglas is the tough, cynical detective whose wife, Parker, has a secret. She was once the client of the abortionist, George Macready, Douglas is trying to put away. William Bendix as a fellow detective, Joseph Wiseman as a seething lowlife gangster and Lee Grant, Oscar nominated in her screen debut, as a shoplifter all have their moments, but Parker’s 11th hour confession remains the film’s highlight. That scene was enough to bring her a second Oscar nomination for the second year in a row.

INTERRUPTED MELODY (1955), directed by Curtis Bernhardt

Parker is superb as Australian opera singer Marjorie Lawrence (1907-1979) who was stricken with polio at the height of her career. Parker portrays the soprano from her early career through stardom at New York’s Metropolitan Opera to her polio in 1941 to her comeback performing for the troops. Glenn Ford plays her doctor husband, Roger Moore her brother. Parker did her own singing an octave lower than Eileen Farrell whose voice is heard on the soundtrack.

Parker received her third Oscar nomination in a very competitive year for this performance over expected nominee Doris Day in Love Me or Leave Me.

HOME FROM THE HILL (1960), directed by Vincente Minnelli

Robert Mitchum as a wealthy womanizing Texan and George Peppard as his illegitimate son received the bulk of the kudos for Minnelli’s beautifully rendered modern family drama, but Parker as his long-suffering wife and George Hamilton as her over-protected son are equally memorable.

The film features many memorable scenes, but the one that gives audiences a lump in the throat is the beautifully played final scene between Parker and Peppard. That scene alone should have been enough to garner Parker a fourth Oscar nomination, but this time she wasn’t so lucky.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965), directed by Robert Wise

One of the most popular films of all time, but not one in which Parker is well utilized. The film belongs to Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, the nuns led by Peggy Wood, the kids, the gorgeous location filming and, of course, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s score. Parker is stuck with the thankless role of the other woman and to add insult to injury, her character’s two songs in the Broadway production have both been eliminated.

Still, Parker is given enough screen time for younger audiences to get to know her and perhaps seek out some of her other work.