Betty Field

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Betty Field, 1947, photo: Carl Van Vechten

Betty Field (born February 8, 1913 in Boston , Massachusetts , † September 13, 1973 in Hyannis , Massachusetts) was an American stage and film actress, who was best known for film dramas of the 1940s.

Life

Betty Field grew up in Queens , New York City and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan. Then she appeared in the smallest roles on Broadway . However, she played her first leading stage role in London in the comedy She Loves Me Not . After her return to the USA in 1935 she had successes in several Broadway productions, again mostly in comedies , before she appeared in the bittersweet comedy What a Life! In 1939, written by Billy Wilder among others . made her film debut.

Lewis Milestone's film adaptation of John Steinbeck's social drama Von Mäusen und Menschen , in which Betty Field embodied the only unfounded and tragically ending female figure in a provocative way for the time, marked her breakthrough as a serious dramatic actress, even if she was the one to be taken seriously The road to becoming a big movie star seemed blocked.

“A small, simple, ash-blonde girl. Betty isn't exactly one of the sirens in the cinema. But she makes the most of her appearance and has adapted her technique well to the camera. Your eyes are your main dramatic weapon; she can express as much with the movement of an eyelid as with a grand gesture. Her poker face rarely shows a movement, and this rigid face makes her appear several years younger. It also looks like a tortured soul is hiding behind it. "

- TIME magazine : via Betty Field, January 6, 1941

Field commuted between Broadway and Hollywood . While she continued to appear in comedies on stage, she played mostly neurotic and problematic female figures on the screen , for example in the 1942 drama Kings Row as incest victim , which could only be hinted at in the film version of the novel, which was smoothed out due to the censorship.

In 1945, Betty Field played the leading female role in Jean Renoir's The Man from the South , another film, still widely known today as a classic, about the struggle for survival of a cotton growing family in the deep south of the United States. Her next feature film was an adaptation of the novel The Great Gatsby in 1949 , with Alan Ladd in the title role as Field's unhappy lover.

After that, Betty Field appeared exclusively on stage and on television for several years. It was not until the mid-1950s that she returned to the screen for occasional character roles, usually as the understanding mother of the main characters. In 1966 she played a pregnant woman at the age of 53 in John Ford's last film Seven Women . (Back then, her date of birth was still assumed to be 1918.) Her last movie was the 1968 action flick Coogan's Big Bluff with Clint Eastwood .

Betty Field was married to the playwright Elmer Rice from 1942 until the divorce in 1956 and had three children with him. Two other Fields marriages remained childless.

Betty Field died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 60 .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Betty Field  - Collection of Images
personal data
SURNAME Field, Betty
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts , United States
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1973
Place of death Hyannis , Massachusetts , United States