TERESA WRIGHT

'Teresa Wright' (October 27, 1918 – March 6, 2005) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Career

Private life

Academy Awards and nominations

Notes

External links

Biography

Early life

She was born 'Muriel Teresa Wright' in Harlem, New York City and grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey.Thomas, Bob. "Teresa Wright "Pride of the Yankees" co-star dies", copy of item from Associated Press, March 8, 2005. Accessed May 15, 2007. "Wright was born in New York City on Oct. 27, 1918, and grew up in Maplewood, N.J., where she showed promise in theatricals at Columbia High School." During her years at Columbia High School, she became seriously interested in acting and spent her summers working in Provincetown theater productions. Following her high school graduation in 1938, she returned to New York and was hired to understudy the role of Emily (played by Dorothy McGuire and later Martha Scott) in Thornton Wilder's ''Our Town''. She took over the role when Martha Scott went to Hollywood to make the film version of the play.

Career

In the fall of 1939, she appeared in the stage play ''Life with Father'', playing the role of Mary Skinner for two years. It was there that she was discovered by a talent scout hired by Samuel Goldwyn to find a young actress for the role of Bette Davis' daughter in the 1941 adaptation of Lillian Hellman's ''The Little Foxes''. She was immediately signed to a five-year Hollywood contract but asserted her seriousness as an actress. Her contract was unique by Hollywood standards because it contained the following clause:
Wright earned an Academy Award nomination for her screen debut in ''The Little Foxes'' (1941). The following year, she was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress for ''The Pride of the Yankees'', in which she played opposite Gary Cooper as the wife of Lou Gehrig; that same year, she was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress as Greer Garson's daughter-in-law in ''Mrs. Miniver'', for which she won. No actor has ever duplicated, or is likely to duplicate, her feat of receiving an Oscar nomination for each of their first three films.
In 1943 in the film ''Shadow of a Doubt'', directed by Alfred Hitchcock, she played the innocent girl who discovered that her beloved uncle was a murderer. Other notable films include ''The Best Years of Our Lives'' (1946) — like ''Mrs. Miniver'', a film focused on home life affected by World War II — and ''The Men'' (1950).
Wright rebelled against the studio system of the time; When Samuel Goldwyn fired her, citing her refusal to publicize a film, she expressed no regret about losing her $5000/week contract. She said, "The type of contract between players and producers is, I feel, antiquated in form and abstract in concept....We have no privacies which producers cannot invade, they trade us like cattle, boss us like children."^[1]
After 1959 she worked mainly in television and on the stage. She was nominated for Emmys in 1957 for ''The Miracle Worker'' and in 1960 for ''The Margaret Bourke-White Story''. She was in the 1975 Broadway revival of ''Death of a Salesman'' and the 1980 revival of ''Morning's at Seven'', for which she won a Drama Desk Award as a member of the Outstanding Ensemble Performance.
Her more recent movie appearances included a major role in ''Somewhere in Time'' and the role of Miss Birdie in ''John Grisham's The Rainmaker'' in 1997.
She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures at 1658 Vine Street and one for television at 6405 Hollywood Blvd.

Private life

Wright was married to writer Niven Busch from 1942 to 1952; they had two children. She married playwright Robert Anderson in 1959; they later divorced, but maintained a close relationship until the end of her life.
She died of a heart attack at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut at the age of 86.

Academy Awards and nominations

★ 1943 - Won Best Actress in a Supporting Role - ''Mrs. Miniver''

★ 1943 - Nominated Best Actress in a Leading Role - ''The Pride of the Yankees''

★ 1942 - Nominated Best Actress in a Supporting Role - ''The Little Foxes''

Notes

1. Teresa Wright obituary, CNN.com

External links

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★ Official ''Somewhere In Time'' Website (INSITE)

★ More Photos