It's that time again, lovely reader - time for you to determine JUNE's roster of Supporting Actresses. As you'll certainly note, I've tweaked things to direct our attention to the first decade or so of Oscar's Supporting Actresses. (This begins what will be a "March of Time" through the summer and early fall months, as we travel decade by decade through the category's history). So, lovely constituents...What year deserves the focus
for JUNE's month of
Supporting Actress Sundays?
for JUNE's month of
Supporting Actress Sundays?
1937: Alice Brady in In Old Chicago, Andrea Leeds in Stage Door, Anne Shirley in Stella Dallas, Claire Trevor in Dead End, May Whitty in Night Must Fall.
1938: Fay Bainter in Jezebel, Beulah Bondi in Of Human Hearts, Billie Burke in Merrily We Live, Spring Byington in You Can't Take it With You, Miliza Korjus in The Great Waltz.
1939: Olivia de Havilland in Gone With The Wind, Geraldine Fitzgerald in Wuthering Heights, Hattie McDaniel in Gone With The Wind, Edna May Oliver in Drums Along the Mohawk, Maria Ouspenskaya in Love Affair.
1941: Sara Allgood in How Green Was My Valley, Mary Astor in The Great Lie, Patricia Collinge in The Little Foxes, Teresa Wright in The Little Foxes, Margaret Wycherly in Sergeant York.
1943: Gladys Cooper in The Song of Bernadette, Paulette Goddard in So Proudly We Hail, Katina Paxinou in For Whom the Bell Tolls, Anne Revere in The Song of Bernadette, Lucile Watson in Watch on the Rhine.
1944: Ethel Barrymore in None But the Lonely Heart, Jennifer Jones in Since You Went Away, Angela Lansbury in Gaslight, Aline MacMahon in Dragon Seed, Agnes Moorehead in Mrs. Parkington.
1945: Eve Arden in Mildred Pierce, Ann Blyth in Mildred Pierce, Angela Lansbury in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Joan Lorring in The Corn Is Green, Anne Revere in National Velvet.
1946: Ethel Barrymore in The Spiral Staircase, Anne Baxter in The Razor's Edge, Lillian Gish in Duel in the Sun, Flora Robson in Saratoga Trunk, Gale Sondergaard in Anna and the King of Siam.
1947: Ethel Barrymore in The Paradine Case, Gloria Grahame in Crossfire, Celeste Holm in Gentleman's Agreement, Marjorie Main in The Egg and I, Anne Revere in Gentleman's Agreement.
1948: Claire Trevor in Key Largo, Barbara Bel Geddes in I Remember Mama, Ellen Corby in I Remember Mama, Agnes Moorehead in Johnny Belinda, Jean Simmons in Hamlet.The choice is yours...
Let your voice be heard by voting in the column at right or here.
15 comments:
I'm torn: 39 is considered one of the best years ever for film (and I would love to be a part of that one); but 38 and 45 are so tempting. I love Eve Arden in Mildred Pierce. And 44 has Moorehead.
Remember, June's my bday month--hee.
The '37 selections look interesting, and I'm intrigued by Claire Trevor.
Come on, we can't let 1939 lose again! Let me sum it up: Hattie McDaniel's legendary win, de Havilland's breakthrough, legendary character actress Edna May Oliver's only nomination, Ouespenskaya nabs another nomination with another one scene role and Fitzgerald brings dignity to a dreary costume picture. The leader right now, 1937, doesn't even compare to this amazing year.
1939!!!!!!
I'm surprised that we've yet to hit upon an Ethel Barrymore performance seeing as she's in a four-way tie with Maggie Smith, Geraldine Page and Agnes Moorehead for second most supporting actress nominations.
By the way lulu, I know you've enlightened us to which director has led the most ladies to supporting actress nominations but I just had to share this little achievement that I noticed:
Fay Bainter in Jezebel (1938)
Barbara O’Neil in All This and Heaven Too (1940)
Mary Astor in The Great Lie (1941)
Patricia Colinge and Teresa Wright in The Little Foxes (1941)
Gladys Cooper in Now, Voyager (1942)
Lucille Watson in Watch on the Rhine (1943)
Joan Lorring in The Corn is Green (1946)
Celeste Holm in All About Eve (1950)
Agnes Moorehead in Hush… Hush, Little Charlotte (1964)
Lillian Ghish in The Whales of August (1987)
What did they all have in common? They all had to play off the same leading lady, Bette Davis. :)
You're forgetting Thelma Ritter, also nominated for 'All about Eve'. That brings the total to twelve (and, for the record, Ann Sothern was nominated for 'The Whales of August', not Lillian Gish.
That's excellent, guys.
Thanks for that observation.
Who do we think holds the record for Leading MEN?
By jove whip-smart those were idiotic (a word I'll be using more due to my current Katharine Hepburn project) oversights on my part so thanks for pointing them out. I kept jumping between the Academy Awards database and each supporting actress's movie profile on imdb that I made the mistakes. :)
Which leads me to another supporting actress project to consider: when leading ladies go supporting. Kate, Bette and their kind eventually had to be "pushed to the edges" to accommodate the new faces so I thought it'd be interesting to analyze how they understood what a supporting role required once they had to do them.
Just thinking. :)
And I just realized it now that Bette Davis turned 100 this year.......
Yeah, and when all the centenary tributes were happening, I was all: "What could StinkyLulu do for LaBette?"
Doh!
Well I'm doing mine for Kate Hepburn's 101st on my own blog with my "Kate 101" project. 99 more photos and quotations to go until May 12, 2009.
Not to mention it was the centenary of both Bette And Joan Crawford.
It's interesting to note their emergence as leads--it seems like a lot of the old leading ladies jumped from little parts directly to leads. Am I wrong about that?
And I also wonder why some make the leap to lead, and some never do. Innersting.....
Well, you gotta remember that their entire careers were more or less dictated by what the studios wanted. Hard work didn't count for as much back then as good luck did.
Bette did buck the trend, though, by turning the tables on the studios once she became a big star.
For what it's worth - the performances I'd be curious to read about would be . . .
1937 for May Whitty
1938 for Billie Burke
1941 for Teresa Wright
But - that's just me.
btw - are you done academenting yet?
The three performances I've seen from this decade - Trevor in '48 and Collinge/Wright - are all fine but not part of groups that I'd especially like to see covered.
In other news, I finally watched the rare VHS copy of 'Last Summer' that I bought off eBay. Catherine Burns... whoah, boy, that's some intense acting. Great perf from Barbara Hershey as well (in one of her earlier film roles).
Post a Comment