Ann Blyth and Donald O'Connor - a couple of Irish-American kids

 Ann Blyth and Donald O'Connor are a couple of swell Irish-American kids playing a couple of swell Irish-American kid entertainers in The Merry Monahans (1944).  Another top of me hat to you with the approach of St. Patrick's Day.  From my book, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.:

She and Donald are mulling over their problems on a park bench where the stereotyped Irish cop played by Robert Homans on the lookout for the reported runaway, has discovered them. 

Ann, innocent as you please, launches into her Irish accent (possibly borrowed from her Irish-born mother), and berates “my fine policeman” for thinking she was anything but the proud daughter of another Irish cop.

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Ann Blyth Borrows Joan Crawford's Oscar

Ann Blyth once confiscated Joan Crawford's Oscar award for a scavenger hunt.

Above, we have a photo of Ann congratulating Joan for her Best Actress win when director Michael Curtiz, Ann, other movie friends and a lot of press brought the statue to Joan's sickbed (as she claimed to have missed the ceremony due to illness) to celebrate.

With the Academy Awards fast approaching, let's take a moment for a footnote in the glamourous careers of Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth -- for a nutty and classy episode of their friendship.  As reported in Photoplay magazine in April 1949, Ann recalled for friends who hoped she would win an Oscar one day that she already had one, for an evening, at least.

"Her task in a Scavenger Hunt had been to bring back Joan Crawford's Oscar won for 'Mildred Pierce.'  And since Ann had played Joan's daughter in that film, the star handed over the Oscar, assuring Ann that no one else in the world could pry it away from her.

'And I was so afraid something would happen to it, I kept it beside me on the pillow all night."

Ann Blyth in MURDER, SHE WROTE - today on COZI-TV

Ann Blyth appeared in an episode of Murder, She Wrote called "Reflections of the Mind" in 1985. It was her last television acting role. It will be rerun today on the COZI-TV cable channel at 4 p.m. Eastern.  Check your cable provider listings.

The above photo shows Angela Lansbury, who stars as the mystery writer and sleuth, Jessica Fletcher, comforting her old pal, because Ann is going crazy, and tried to stab her husband, and maybe killed people. I'm not telling you here, but you can get more info on the episode - warning, with a spoiler -- at my post at Another Old Movie Blog here.  

This is from my book, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.:

Most especially enjoyable to fans was the matchup of Ann and Angela, who four decades earlier were both nominated in the same Best Supporting Actress category for the 1945 Oscars.  Ann, seventeen years old, had been nominated for Mildred Pierce.  Miss Lansbury, twenty years old, had been nominated for The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Both lost out to veteran actress Anne Revere.

A fond and teasing reference to their earlier careers must be the framed photograph we see at the very beginning of the episode of a young Ann and Angela standing together before what appears to be a microphone, possibly in the early 1950s.  


Martin Milner and Ben Murphy also appear in this episode.  Remember to tune in, or set your recorder!

Mildred Pierce - An Oscar-Winning Visit

It's time again for another visit with that notorious Mildred Pierce.  Here Ann Blyth pays a visit to Joan Crawford to celebrate the night Joan Crawford won the Academy Award.

As part of its month-long celebration of "31 Days of Oscar", Turner Classic Movies is showing Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated films, this year in alphabetical order.  We're up to the "M's", and that means Mildred Pierce (1945).

Joan Crawford did not attend the awards ceremony that night, due to illness, or what she claimed was illness but may have been a severe care of nerves.  Here Ann visits her bedside, and we have a glimpse of the off-screen affectionate rapport between the big star and the newcomer that was so important to their riveting chemistry on screen.  Their relationship began when Joan Crawford volunteered to do Ann's screen test with her.  From my book on Ann Blyth's career:

"Ann felt that Joan’s making the test with her was very generous, as testing with newcomers was not a normal chore for a star...

She played with me… She tried to do everything in my favor.  And that wasn’t just in the test.  It was all through the picture.

Joan Crawford returned the admiration in an article for the Saturday Evening Post in November 1946:
 
Ann, as the daughter, was perfect. I loved every scene with her except where I had to slap her and she had to slap me…After I slapped Ann, I burst into tears and found myself apologizing frantically. Later, it wasn’t quite so hard to have Ann slap me, but my hand was shaking so the scene faded out, and then it was Ann who was remorsefully apologizing."

Mildred Pierce will be shown this coming Friday, February 17th at 1.pm. on Turner Classic Movies.

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.

Mildred Pierce (1945) - Poster and Lobby Card

The above full-sheet poster for Mildred Pierce (1945) was part of the original publicity for the movie.  It tells us in bold imagery that Joan Crawford is the star attraction of the film: not only is her name at the top, but there are two images of her on the poster.  The full body image of her posed with a gun entices the observer with a tease on the story line.  But the overwhelming image on the poster is of the face that takes up half the sheet.  The face is not Mildred Pierce -- Mildred is the full-body image -- the face is Joan.  We are going to see Joan.  She is the selling point of the movie.

However, in this follow-up colorized lobby card, we see the focus is not Joan Crawford.  There are three people in the image, the fateful triangle that makes up the story's intrigue and tragedy: Mildred, her playboy second husband, and her daughter, Veda.

Ann Blyth rates fifth billing in the movie, and a smaller credit on the large poster.  She isn't even mentioned on the lobby card-- but she is now an image used for publicity.  This is on the strength of her performance--which was praised by critics even before the film was released.  She earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the youngest person at the time (16 years old) to be so honored.

Mildred Pierce is running again on Turner Classic Movies tomorrow at 8 a.m. Eastern.  Go see what all the fuss was about.

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.

Mildred Pierce on TCM

She's baa-aa-ack!

This coming Sunday, as part of its tribute to Mother's Day, Turner Classic Movies is again showing our favorite instructional video on how to raise children--Mildred Pierce (1945).  This was the role that earned Ann Blyth her Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the youngest (at 16 years old) at that time to have been nominated for a major acting award. 

The lobby card above is not from the original release of the movie, but from a re-release.  The original publicity images from the movie showed only Joan.  We can see how great an impact Ann's Veda Pierce had on the critics and the public by subsequent marketing showing her front and center.

Tune in Sunday, May 8th at 4 pm ET for Ann, Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Eve Arden, Zachary Scott and a the rest of the gang in this glossy noir.  We covered Mildred Pierce here at my Another Old Movie Blog.