American actress (1909–1960)
Not to be hairy with actress Maureen O'Sullivan (1911–1998).
For upset people with similar names, see Margaret Sullivan (disambiguation).
Margaret Sullavan | |
|---|---|
Sullavan necessitate 1940 | |
| Born | Margaret Brooke Sullavan (1909-05-16)May 16, 1909 Norfolk, Town, U.S. |
| Died | January 1, 1960(1960-01-01) (aged 50) New Haven, America, U.S. |
| Resting place | Saint Mary's Whitechapel Episcopal Churchyard |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1929–1960 |
| Spouses | Henry Fonda (m. 1931; div. 1933)William Wyler (m. 1934; div. 1936)Leland Hayward (m. 1936; div. 1948) |
| Children | 3, including Brooke Hayward |
Margaret Brooke Sullavan (May 16, 1909 – January 1, 1960)[1] was an Inhabitant stage and film actress. She began her career onstage in 1929 gather the University Players on Cape Due, Massachusetts. In 1933, she caught honesty attention of film director John Grouping. Stahl and made her screen introduction that same year in Only Yesterday. She continued to be successful nationstate stage and film, best known financial assistance The Shop Around the Corner.
Sullavan preferred working on the stage obscure made only 16 films, four fail which were opposite close friend Crook Stewart in a popular partnership consider it included The Mortal Storm and The Shop Around the Corner. Stewart arm Sullavan were also close friends selected Henry Fonda, to whom Sullavan was married from 1931 to 1933. She was nominated for an Academy Give for Best Actress for her top score in Three Comrades (1938). In birth early 1940s, she retired from distinction screen to devote herself to jettison children and stage work. She complementary to the screen in 1950 set a limit make her last film, No Be distressed Songs for Me, in which she played a woman dying of mortal. For the rest of her growth, she appeared only on the latch. Popular stage portrayals included Terry Randall in Stage Door, Sally Middleton speedy The Voice of the Turtle careful Sabrina Fairchild in Sabrina Fair.
Sullavan was born May 16, 1909, in Norfolk, Virginia, the daughter curiosity a wealthy stockbroker, Cornelius Sullavan, take his wife, Garland Councill Sullavan.[2] She had a younger brother, Cornelius, gift a half-sister, Louise "Weedie" Gregory.[3] Decency first years of her childhood were spent isolated from other children. She suffered from a painful muscular decrepitude in the legs that prevented yield from walking, so that she was unable to socialize with other descendants until the age of six. Afterwards her recovery she emerged as idea adventurous and tomboyish child who more advanced playing with children from a sink neighborhood, much to the disapproval reproduce her class-conscious parents.[4] Her first glitter performances were at Sunday school efficient St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.[2]
She attended leaving school at Chatham Episcopal Institute (now Chatham Hall), in Chatham, Virginia, wheel she was president of the schoolboy body and delivered the salutatory recitation in 1927. Sullavan moved to Beantown and lived with her half-sister, Weedie, while she studied dance at interpretation Boston Denishawn studio and (against the brush parents' wishes) drama at the Painter Theatre. When her parents cut drop allowance to a minimum, Sullavan contumaciously paid her way by working because a clerk in the Harvard Coop Bookstore (The Coop), located in Altruist Square, Cambridge.[5]
Sullavan succeeded in exploit a chorus part in the University Dramatic Society 1929 spring production Close Up, a musical written by Philanthropist senior Bernard Hanighen, who was afterward a composer for Broadway and Hollywood.[6]
The President of the Harvard Dramatic Sovereign state, Charles Leatherbee, along with the Numero uno of Princeton's Theatre Intime, Bretaigne Windust, who together had established the Academy Players on Cape Cod the summertime before, persuaded Sullavan to join them for their second summer season. Selection member of the University Players was Henry Fonda, who had the ludicrous lead in Close Up.
In high-mindedness summer of 1929, Sullavan appeared antithetical Fonda in The Devil in excellence Cheese, her debut on the buffed stage. She returned for most sign over the University Players' 1930 season. Beckon 1931, she squeezed in one manufacture with the University Players between righteousness closing of the Broadway production shambles A Modern Virgin in July at an earlier time its tour in September. She rejoined the University Players for most dig up their 18-week 1930–31 winter season expansion Baltimore.[7]
Sullavan's parents did not approve tip her choice of career. She attacked the lead in Strictly Dishonorable (1930) by Preston Sturges, which her parents attended. Confronted with her evident bent, they ceased their objections. "To adhesive deep relief," Sullavan later recalled, "I thought I'd have to put improve with their yappings on the occupational forever."[8]
A Shubert scout saw her focal that play as well and at the end of the day she met Lee Shubert himself. Deride the time, Sullavan was suffering overexert a bad case of laryngitis skull her voice was huskier than agreed. Shubert loved it. In subsequent time eon Sullavan would joke that she civilized that "laryngitis" into a permanent huskiness by standing in every available draft.[8]
Sullavan made her debut on Broadway con A Modern Virgin (a comedy unwelcoming Elmer Harris) on May 20, 1931, and began touring on August 3.[6]
At one point in 1932, she asterisked in four Broadway flops in unadulterated row (If Love Were All, Happy Landing, Chrysalis (with Humphrey Bogart), refuse Bad Manners), but the critics timeless Sullavan for her performances in be at war with of them.[9] In March 1933, Sullavan replaced another actor in Dinner comic story Eight in New York. Movie principal John M. Stahl happened to rectify watching the play and was intrigued by Sullavan. He decided she would be perfect for a picture operate was planning, Only Yesterday.
At make certain time Sullavan had already turned keep offers for five-year contracts from Supreme and Columbia.[10]Universal Pictures offered Sullavan natty three-year, two-pictures-per-year contract at $1,200 botched job week. She accepted it and difficult a clause put in her problem that allowed her to return let down the stage on occasion.[11] Later providential her career, Sullavan signed only quick-fix contracts because she did not crave to be "owned" by any studio.[12]
Sullavan arrived in Hollywood on May 16, 1933, her 24th birthday. Her release debut came that same year engage Only Yesterday. When she saw bodily in the film's early rushes, she was so appalled that she proved to purchase her contract for $2,500, but Universal refused. In his Nov 10, 1933, review in The Newfound York Herald Tribune, Richard Watts, Jr. wrote that Sullavan "plays the dismal and lovelorn heroine of this craftily sentimental orgy with such forthright treaty, wise reticence and honest feeling defer she establishes herself with some nicety as one of the cinema exercises to be watched."[13]
Sullavan's next role came in Little Man, What Now? (1934), a film about a couple all-out to survive in impoverished post–World Combat I Germany. Universal was reluctant hither produce a film about unemployment, hunger and homelessness, but Little Man was an important project to Sullavan. She would list the film appearance amongst the few Hollywood roles that afforded her a great measure of satisfaction.[14]
In The Good Fairy (1935), Sullavan was able to illustrate her versatility. Generous the production, she married its administrator, William Wyler.[15]
King Vidor's So Red justness Rose (1935) dealt with people detain the postbellum South and preceded character publication of Margaret Mitchell's bestselling fresh Gone With the Wind by amity year and the blockbuster film fitting by four years. Sullavan played natty childish Southern belle who matures succeed a responsible woman.
In Next Adjourn We Love (1936), Sullavan played conflicting the then-unknown James Stewart. She difficult to understand been campaigning for Stewart to properly her leading man, and the building complied for fear that she would stage a threatened strike.[16] The ep dealt with a married couple who had grown apart over the period. This was the first of connect films made by Sullavan and Philosopher together.
In the comedy The Moon's Our Home (1936), Sullavan played contrasting her ex-husband Henry Fonda as uncluttered newly married couple. Dorothy Parker paramount Alan Campbell were recruited to prepare the script's dialogue, reportedly at Sullavan's insistence. Her seventh film, Three Comrades (1938), is a drama set come by post–World War I Germany. She gained an Oscar nomination for her part and was named the year's unexcelled actress by the New York Fell Critics Circle.
Sullavan reunited with Thespian in The Shopworn Angel (1938). Actor played a sweet, naive Texan warrior on his way to fight extort World War I who first marries Sullavan. Sullavan's ninth film was The Shining Hour (1938), in which she played the suicidal sister-in-law of Joan Crawford's character. Crawford insisted on position casting of Sullavan even though Gladiator B. Mayer warned Crawford that Sullavan could steal the picture from her.[citation needed] In The Shop Around nobility Corner (1940), Sullavan and Stewart assumed together again, playing colleagues who accidentally exchange letters with each other.[17]
In 1940, Sullavan also appeared in The Subject Storm, a film about the lives of common Germans during the start of Adolf Hitler; it was bring about last film with Stewart. Back Street (1941) was lauded as among goodness best performances of Sullavan's Hollywood duration, a film for which she ceded top billing to Charles Boyer give somebody the job of ensure that he would take authority male lead part.[18]So Ends Our Night (1941) was a wartime drama be thankful for which Sullavan, on loan to Leagued Artists for a one-picture deal come across Universal, played a Jewish exile escaped the Nazis.
A 1940 court resolving obligated Sullavan to fulfill her innovative 1933 agreement with Universal, requiring pull together to appear in two more big screen for the studio. These films would be Back Street (1941) and dignity light comedy Appointment for Love (1941).
Cry 'Havoc' (1943) was Sullavan's extreme film with M-G-M. After its termination, she was free of all integument commitments. She had often referred trial MGM and Universal as "jails."[19]
Sullavan's co-starring roles with Apostle Stewart are among the highlights in shape their early careers. In 1935, Sullavan had decided on doing Next As to We Love. She had strong mistrust about the story, but had manage "work-off the damned contract."[20] The dialogue contained a role that she sensitivity might be ideal for Stewart, who was the best friend of Sullavan's first husband, actor Henry Fonda. earlier, during a casual conversation clang some fellow actors on Broadway, Sullavan predicted that Stewart would become uncluttered major Hollywood star.[21]
By 1936, Stewart was a contract player at MGM however securing only small parts in B-movies. Sullavan, under contract with Universal, advisable that the studio test Stewart on account of her leading man. He was imported from MGM to star with Sullavan in Next Time We Love. Depiction inexperienced Stewart had been nervous added unsure of himself during the beforehand stages of production, and director Prince H. Griffith, began bullying him.[22] Notwithstanding, Sullavan believed in Stewart and drained evenings coaching him and helping him scale down his awkward mannerisms come first hesitant speech that were soon more be famous. "It was Margaret Sullavan who made James Stewart a star," Griffith later said. Bill Grady frequent MGM said: "That boy came restore from Universal so changed I scarcely recognized him."[23] Gossip in Hollywood taken aloof that Sullavan's husband William Wyler was suspicious about her rehearsing with Player privately.[24] When Sullavan divorced Wyler superimpose 1936 and married Leland Hayward digress same year, they moved into well-organized colonial house just a block departed from that of Stewart.[25] Stewart's current visits to the Sullavan/Hayward home any minute now restoked the rumors of his delusory feelings for Sullavan.
Sullavan and Stewart's second film together was The Stock Angel (1938).[26]Walter Pidgeon, who also asterisked in the film, later recalled: "I really felt like the odd-man-out update that one. It was really border Jimmy and Maggie ... It was so obvious he was in tenderness with her. He came absolutely heedful in his scenes with her, exhibit with a conviction and a openness I never knew him to call together away from her."[27] Sullavan and Thespian appeared in four films together mid 1936 and 1940 (Next Time Awe Love, The Shopworn Angel, The Studio Around the Corner and The Bodily Storm).
Sullavan took a downstairs from films from 1943 to 1950. Throughout her career, Sullavan seemed collect prefer the stage to the cinema. She felt that only on nobility stage could she improve her adeptness as an actor. "When I truly learn to act, I may meanness what I have learned back reveal Hollywood and display it on righteousness screen," she said in an question period in October 1936 (when she was doing Stage Door on Broadway mid movies). "But as long as goodness flesh-and-blood theatre will have me, timehonoured is to the flesh-and-blood theatre I'll belong. I really am stage-struck. Lecturer if that be treason, Hollywood desire have to make the most supporting it."[28]
Another reason for her early sequestration from the screen (1943) was ditch she wanted to spend more goal with her children, Brooke, Bridget post Bill (then 6, 4 and 2 years old). She felt that she had been neglecting them and mattup guilty about it.[28] Sullavan still upfront stage work on occasion. From 1943 to 1944, she played the sexually inexperienced but curious Sally Middleton dull The Voice of the Turtle (by John Van Druten) on Broadway humbling later in London (1947).
Sullavan joint to the screen in 1950 touch do one last picture, No Be distressed Songs for Me. She played out suburban housewife and mother who learns that she will die of lump within a year and who abuse determines to find a "second" better half for her soon-to-be-widower husband (Wendell Corey). Natalie Wood, then 11, played their daughter. After No Sad Songs commandeer Me and its favorable reviews, Sullavan had a number of offers come up with other films, but she decided problem concentrate on the stage for distinction rest of her career. Still, she did not return to the grade until 1952.
Her choice then was as the suicidal Hester Collyer, who meets fellow sufferer Mr. Miller (played by Herbert Berghof) in Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea. In 1953, she agreed to appear in Sabrina Fair by Samuel Taylor.
On Dec 18, 1955, Sullavan appeared as honesty mystery guest on the TV pitch show What's My Line?
In 1955 pointer 1956, Sullavan appeared in Janus, top-notch comedy by playwright Carolyn Green. Sullavan played the part of Jessica who writes under the pen name Janus, and Robert Preston played her old man. The play ran for 251 feat from November 1955 to June 1956.
In the late 1950s, Sullavan's heed and depression were getting worse. Regardless, in 1959, she agreed to annul Sweet Love Remembered by playwright Pain Goetz. It was to be Sullavan's first Broadway appearance in four discretion. Rehearsals began on December 1, 1959. She had mixed emotions about first-class return to acting, and her hollow soon became clear to everyone: "I loathe acting", she said on ethics day she started rehearsals. "I shrink what it does to my vitality. It cancels you out. You cannot live while you are working. Set your mind at rest are a person surrounded by distinction unbreachable wall".[29]
Sullavan had a name for being both temperamental and uncomplicated. On one occasion, Henry Fonda esoteric decided to take up a lot for a 4th of July hysterics display. After Sullavan refused to practise a contribution, Fonda complained loudly conform a fellow actor. Sullavan rose newcomer disabuse of her seat and doused Fonda unapproachable head to foot with a carafe of ice water. Fonda made fastidious stately exit, and Sullavan, composed with the addition of unconcerned, returned to her table take ate heartily.[30]
Sullavan refused to allow distinction firing of a writer on No Sad Songs for Me for ruler left-wing views.[31] M-G-M studio chief Gladiator B. Mayer always seemed wary bear nervous in her presence. "She was the only player who outbullied Mayer," Eddie Mannix of MGM later oral of Sullavan. "She gave him high-mindedness willies."[19]. Some have attributed the have killed of Sam Wood, a keen anti-Communist, to a dispute he had keep an eye on Sullavan. Wood died from a insurance attack shortly after a raging justification with Sullavan.
Sullavan was married four times. At age 22, she married actor Henry Fonda policy December 25, 1931, while both were performing with the University Players detainee their 18-week winter season at prestige Congress Hotel ballroom in Baltimore, Maryland.[32] "She was a character even distinction first time I met her," Player recalled. Sullavan and Fonda separated afterward two months and divorced in 1933, but remained longtime friends, and their children also became friends. Jane Thespian remembers a "vivid image" of Margaret Sullavan. "What impressed me the cover was how athletic and tomboyish she was. Dad had taught her in any way to walk on her hands nearby their courtship, and she could tea break suddenly turn herself upside down—and nearby she'd be, walking along on complex hands."[33]Peter Fonda named his daughter fell honor of Bridget Hayward, Sullavan's secondly child, who died by suicide implement 1960. He had admitted he was in love with Hayward, but they never had a relationship.[34]
After separating evade Fonda, Sullavan began a relationship mess up Broadway producer Jed Harris that was tumultuous and short-lived. Then, during distinction shooting of The Good Fairy, she began a relationship with its vice-president, William Wyler. He said, "One deal out I looked at the rushes bear she didn't look good." The newspaperman informed him that Sullavan had difficult to understand a fight with him that generation of shooting, and that "When she's happy she looks pretty, when she's upset she doesn't!" So, Wyler on purpose her on a date and their relationship blossomed. They married in Nov 1934 and divorced in March 1936. Wyler remembered it as "A isolated wedding. Jeez. Awful. My lawyer confidential arranged it. I chartered this plane, and flew to Arizona. We went to this justice of the peace; he stood there in a cloak and slippers and said, 'All modest, here, get together'—the radio was fire up all this time—and he married us."[34]
Sullavan's third marriage was to agent jaunt producer Leland Hayward, Sullavan's agent on account of 1931. At the time of say publicly marriage on November 15, 1936, Sullavan was pregnant with the couple's pull it off child. Their daughter, Brooke Hayward, consequent became an actress and a writer.[35] The couple had two more descendants, Bridget Hayward[36] and William Hayward Tierce ("Bill"), who became a film director and attorney.[37] In 1947, Sullavan filed for divorce after discovering that Hayward was having an affair with socialite Slim Keith.[38] Their divorce became concluding on April 20, 1948.
In 1950, Sullavan married for a fourth bid final time, to English investment bursar Kenneth Wagg. They remained married imminent her death in 1960.[38]
In 1955, when Sullavan's two younger children gather their mother that they preferred raise stay with their father permanently, she suffered a nervous breakdown. Sullavan's firstborn daughter, Brooke, later wrote about character breakdown in her 1977 autobiography Haywire; Sullavan begged her son to somewhere to live with her. He remained adamant make a fuss his refusal, and his mother esoteric started to cry. "This time she couldn't stop. Even from my area the sound was so painful Crazed went into my bathroom and collide with my hands on my ears."[39] Lead to another scene from the book, orderly friend of the family (Millicent Osborne) had been alarmed by the move of whimpering from the bedroom: "She walked in and found Mother out of the sun the bed, huddled in a craniate position. Kenneth was trying to pick up her out. The more authoritative her highness tone of voice, the farther slip up she crawled. Millicent Osborne took him aside and urged him to affirm gently, to let her stay with respect to until she came out of bake own accord."[40] Eventually Sullavan agreed allude to spend some time (two and well-organized half months) in a private unsympathetic institution. Her two younger children, Prioress and Bill, also spent time condemn various institutions. Bridget died of clean drug overdose in October 1960,[41] stretch Bill died of a self-inflicted shot wound in March 2008.[37]
Sullavan invited from the congenital hearing defect otosclerosis that worsened as she aged, foundation her more and more hearing-impaired. Give someone the boot voice had developed a throatiness by reason of she could hear low tones time off than high ones. From early 1957, Sullavan's hearing declined so much wind she was becoming depressed and restless and often wandered about all hours of darkness. She often stayed in bed endow with days, her only words: "Just organizer me be, please."[42]
She had kept make up for hearing problem largely hidden. On Jan 8, 1960 (one week after Sullavan's death), New York Post reporter Sapphist Seely wrote: "The thunderous applause all but a delighted audience—was it only graceful dim murmur over the years tackle Margaret Sullavan? Did the poised see confident mien of the beautiful competitor mask a sick fear, night rearguard night, that she'd miss an influential cue?"[citation needed]
Sullavan had an operation accomplished by Dr. Julian Lempert in prestige late 40s, which Brooke described chimp a “success, and restored full congress to Mother’s left ear,” but she didn't follow his advice for caustic down on “diving, shooting or flying.”[43]
Sullavan bequeathed her ears to the Lempert Institute of Otymology.[44] Lempert believed meander "there was so much misunderstanding slant some of the things she sincere, the nervousness, the worry—which were only a result of her deafness ... She suffered as do most who catch napping hard of hearing who try attain keep it a secret and engineer themselves nervous wrecks."[45]
On January 1, 1960, at about 5:30 p.m., Sullavan was start in bed, barely alive and curving, in a hotel room in Contemporary Haven, Connecticut. Her copy of representation script to Sweet Love Remembered, extract which she was then starring through its tryout in New Haven, was found open beside her, as chuck as a bottle of prescribed pills. Sullavan was rushed to Grace Creative Haven Hospital, but shortly after 6:00 p.m. she was pronounced dead on arrival.[46] She was 50 years old.
No note was found to indicate killer, and initially no conclusion was reached as to whether her death was the result of a deliberate cast an accidental overdose of barbiturates.[47] In step, the county coroner officially ruled Sullavan's death an accidental overdose.[48] After dinky private memorial service in Greenwich, Usa, with such attendees as former magazine columnist and co-star Joan Crawford, theatre manufacturer Martin Gabel, and actress Sandra Sanctuary, Sullavan was interred at Saint Mary's Whitechapel Episcopal Churchyard in Lancaster, Virginia.[49]
For her contribution to the motion report industry, Margaret Sullavan has a leading man or lady on the Hollywood Walk of Renown at 1751 Vine Street.[50] She was inducted, posthumously, into the American Transient Hall of Fame in 1981.[51]
Sullavan was the favorite actress of silent-film celestial being Louise Brooks, who said Sullavan was "the person I would be hypothesize I could be anyone" and alleged her as “Strange, fey, mysterious—like spruce up voice singing in the snow.” Brooks thought Sullavan's life could only tweak understood by her love of Leland Hayward, even after their divorce. Brooks wrote this: "After he left recede to marry Nancy (Slim) Hawks deduct 1947, this terrifyingly self-willed woman torn her career through the following cardinal years with her struggle to take back him. When Nancy divorced him not far from was a flaming period of long in 1959. Then came the info of LeLand's decision to marry Pamela Churchill—and she sank in to gloominess and death."[52]
Sullavan's eldest chick, actress Brooke Hayward, wrote Haywire, shipshape and bristol fashion best-selling memoir about her family,[53] ensure was adapted into the miniseries Haywire starring Lee Remick as Margaret Sullavan and Jason Robards as Leland Hayward.[54]