Teresa Wright

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Muriel Teresa Wright (born October 27, 1918 in New York City , New York - † March 6, 2005 in New Haven , Connecticut ) was an American actress . She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1943 for her role in Mrs. Miniver , and she had other successes with In the Shadow of Doubt and The Best Years of Our Lives .

Career

Muriel Teresa Wright grew up in Harlem , a neighborhood in New York City . Already during her school days she appeared in plays. Wright had first stage experience in 1937/1938 at the Wharf Theater in Provincetown (Massachusetts). She made her debut in New York in 1938 and then toured with Thornton Wilder's Our Little City . She had another great success in 1947 with the play Life with Father on Broadway . In the early 1940s she was noticed at a Broadway performance by the film producer Samuel Goldwyn , who signed her and brought her to Hollywood. With her role in Goldwyn's film The Little Foxes ( The Little Foxes ) - the daughter of Bette Davis - had that director William Wyler it "the most promising young actress America" described as a success as. Other directors were also positive about Wright, for example Alfred Hitchcock admired her professionalism and precise role preparations.

Even The Little Foxes earned Wright an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress . The following year she won the award for her supporting role in William Wyler's war drama Mrs. Miniver . The film was declared by Hollywood to be a propaganda film. He was supposed to advise the Americans of the necessity for the USA to enter the war on the side of the United Kingdom against Nazi Germany. Also in 1942, she also played the wife of baseball star Lou Gehrig, played by Gary Cooper , in the biopic The Big Throw , which also earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. The following year, Wright had another hit with the lead role in Hitchcock's In The Shade of Doubt . In this film, her character has to discover that her beloved uncle is a dangerous murderer. In 1946 she played an important supporting role in the war returnees drama The Best Years of Our Lives . Also noteworthy were her roles in Such a Papa alongside Gary Cooper or in The Men with Marlon Brando .

Teresa Wright rejected the then prevailing studio system in Hollywood with its studio contracts for actors, which led to a break with her sponsor and boss Samuel Goldwyn in the late 1940s. Without a permanent studio contract, she had to be content with second-rate film projects, despite critical acclaim. Since the late 1950s, she played primarily in television roles and plays on Broadway. On Broadway , she was involved in several successful productions, including Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman . In later years Wright was also seen in films occasionally, for example in A Deadly Dream (1980) alongside Christopher Reeve and as Miss Birdie in Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of the Grisham novel The Rainmaker (1997) alongside Matt Damon .

Wright was married twice: from 1942 to 1952 to the author Niven Busch and from 1959 to 1978 to the writer Robert Anderson . Both marriages ended in divorce. She had two children from her first marriage. Teresa Wright died in March 2005 at the age of 86 from complications from a heart attack .

Filmography (selection)

Awards

further nomination

    • Best Actress ( The Big Throw )

literature

  • Donald Spoto: A Girl's Got To Breathe: The Life of Teresa Wright. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2016, ISBN 978-1-62846-046-9 .

Web links

Commons : Teresa Wright  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry at filmreference.com
  2. ^ Spoto, Donald: The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. (1983), p. 259.
personal data
SURNAME Wright, Teresa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wright, Muriel Teresa (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York , United States
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 2005
Place of death New Haven , Connecticut , United States