Margaret Sullavan

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Margaret Brooke Sullavan (born May 16, 1909 in Norfolk , Virginia , † January 1, 1960 in New Haven , Connecticut ) was an American actress.

Life

Margaret Sullavan came from an old, wealthy family in Virginia . She attended top private schools and began acting at Harvard University . She later played with a student theater group in Massachusetts that included James Stewart and Henry Fonda . She made her Broadway debut in 1931 and later returned to the Broadway stages.

Sullavan signed a deal with Universal in 1933 and became the studio's biggest star with her first role in Only Yesterday . The subsequent roles, however, were not artistically demanding and the actress left the studio in 1936, which was saved from financial ruin with Deanna Durbin in the same year . From 1938, the actress turned under a contract with MGM , where she gave one of her best portrayals alongside Robert Taylor in 1938 in Three Comrades . That same year she appeared alongside Joan Crawford in Burning Fire of Passion . Probably her best-known role today, she played as a film partner of James Stewart in Ernst Lubitsch's classic film Rendezvous after the store closed in 1940. The following year she appeared next to Charles Boyer in the remake of Seitenstrasse ( Back Street ). In the early 1940s she largely withdrew from Hollywood and worked primarily as a stage actress until her death.

She never managed to get her turbulent private life under control permanently. In 1931 she married Henry Fonda . The marriage lasted two months. Her second marriage to director William Wyler from 1934 to 1936 was also short-lived . Their coexistence with their third husband, the acting agent and film producer Leland Hayward from 1936 to 1947, was no less difficult . The couple had three children. The children suffered greatly from the marriage and daughter Bridget later committed suicide. She was a friend of Peter Fonda , the son of her mother's first husband, who later named his daughter Bridget Fonda after her. Daughter Brooke Hayward wrote the family history under the title Haywire . In the 1980 television adaptation, Lee Remick played the role of Margaret Sullavan.

Margaret Sullavan was found unconscious on New Year's Eve of 1960 at a hotel in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 50. The loss of consciousness resulted from an overdose of barbiturates , which also led to her imminent death. It is reasonable to suspect a suicide with the sleeping pills found ; however, an accident was found to be the official cause of death.

Filmography

Web links

Commons : Margaret Sullavan  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files