Margaret Sullavan

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Margaret Brooke Sullavan (May 16, 1909-1960) was an American actress of stage and film. Sullavan began her career on stage in 1929.

She attracted the attention of film director John M. Stahl in 1933 and made her debut on film in Only Yesterday.

Sullavan loved being on stage but made only 16 films, four of which were opposite James Stewart in a famous partnership that included The Mortal Storm and The Shop Around the Corner.

For her role in Three Comrades (1938), she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

She came from television in the early 1940s but made her last film, No Sad Songs for Me, in which she played a woman who was dying of cancer.

She will appear on stage for the remainder of her career. In the 1950s, Sullavan suffered with increasing hearing loss, anxiety, and mental instability.

On January 1, 1960, she died from an overdose of barbiturates, which was unintentional.

Early life

Sullavan was born in 1909 Norfolk, Virginia, the granddaughter of a wealthy stockbroker Cornelius Sullavan and his wife, Garland Councill Sullavan. She had a younger brother, Cornelius, and a half-sister, Louise Gregory. She spent the first years of her childhood lonely from other children. She suffered from a painful muscular imbalance in her legs that barred her from walking, so she was unable to socialize with other children until the age of six. She returned to her family as an adventurous and tomboyish child who liked playing with the children from the poorer neighborhood, much to her class-conscious parents' disapproving. Her first dance appearances were at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church on Sunday School.

She attended boarding school at Chatham Episcopal Institute (now Chatham Hall), where she served as president of the student body and gave the salutatory oration in 1927. She moved to Boston and lived with her half-sister Weedie, while studying dance at the Boston Denishawn studio and (against her parents' wishes) at the Copley Theatre. Sullavan defiantly paid her way by serving as a clerk in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, when her parents reduced her allowance to a minimum.

Personal life

Sullavan had a reputation for being both temperamental and clear. Henry Fonda had planned to host a series for a 4th of July fireworks show on one occasion. Fonda screamed in the wake of Sullavan's refusal to participate, Fonda started screaming for a fellow actor. Sullavan stepped from her chair and doused Fonda with a pitcher of ice water. Fonda made a stately departure, and Sullavan, adamant and unconcerned, returned to her table and dined heartily.

Sam Wood, who was a zealous anti-Communist, was almost killed in another of her blowups. He died from a heart attack shortly after a raging debate with Sullavan, who had refused to allow the expulsion of a writer from a new film (No Sad Songs for Me) due to his left-wing views. Louis B. Mayer's presence in her presence was always threatening and worried. "She was the only player who outbullied Mayer," MGM's Eddie Mannix said of Sullavan. "She gave him the willies."

Sullavan was married four times. "She was a character even before I met her at age 22, 1931, while both were attending the University Players' 18-week winter season in Baltimore," Fonda said. Sullavan and Fonda were separated after two months and divorced in 1933, but their children remained close friends, and their children became close friends. Margaret Sullavan's "vivid image" is recalled by Jane Fonda. "How athletic and tomboyish she was, what impressed me the most." During their courtship, dad had taught her how to walk on her hands, and she could now turn herself upside down, and there she is strolling along on her hands." Peter Fonda named his daughter in honor of Bridget Hayward, Sullavan's second child, who committed suicide in 1960. He had admitted that he was in love with Hayward, but that they never had a chemistry.

Sullavan started a tumultuous and short-lived relationship with Broadway producer Jed Harris after separating from Fonda. During The Good Fairy's shooting, she began a friendship with its director William Wyler. "I looked at the rushes one day and she didn't look well," Wyler said. Sullavan had a fight with him the day of shooting, and the cameraman said, "When she's smiling she looks stunning, she won't!" So, he asked her out on a date and their relationship blossomed. They married in November 1934 and divorced in March 1936. "A wretched marriage," Wyler described it. Jeez is a girl who likes to laugh. That's awful. It was planned by my solicitor. I chartered this plane and flew to Arizona. We arrived at this justice of the peace; he was wearing a robe and slippers and said, 'All right, get together, get together,' — and he married us."

Sullavan's third marriage was to agent and producer Leland Hayward, Sullavan's agent since 1931. Sullavan was pregnant with the couple's first child at the time of the marriage on November 15, 1936. Brooke and their daughter, Elizabeth, became an actress and a writer. Bridget and William Hayward III ("Bill"), who became a film director and attorney, had two more children. Sullavan filed for divorce in 1947 after discovering that Hayward was having an affair with socialite Slim Keith. On April 20, 1948, the couple's divorce became irreversibly broken.

Sullavan married Kenneth Wagg, an English investment banker, in 1950. They were married until her death in 1960.

Sullavan's two younger children told their mother that they wanted to remain with their father permanently, she suffered a nervous breakdown. Brooke, Sullavan's oldest daughter, reminisces of the crash in her 1977 autobiography Haywire; Sullavan's mother, Susannah, later posted about her son's death after being asked to stay with her. He was adamant, and his mother was beginning to cry. "She couldn't avoid this time." Even from my bedroom, the sound was so piercing that I went into my bathroom and put my hands on my ears." A friend of the family (Millicent Osborne) was alarmed by the sound of whimpering from the bedroom: "She stepped in and found mother unconscious under the bed, huddled in a fetal position." Kenneth was attempting to get her out. The more authoritative a man's voice came, the farther she crept. Millicent Osborne led him aside and begged him to talk slowly, not to allow her to remain there until she came out of her own accord." Sullavan eventually agreed to spend some time (two and a half months) in a private mental hospital. Bridget and Bill, her two younger children, also spent time in various institutions. Bridget died as a result of a drug overdose in October 1960, while Bill died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in March 2008.

Sullavan suffered from a congenital hearing impairment that exacerbated as she aged, affecting her in an increasing degree of hearing impaired. Because she could hear low tones better than high ones, her voice had a throaty tone. Sullavan's hearing dropped so much that she was depressed and sleepless, she was often wandering around all night, beginning in 1957. She stayed in bed for days, her only words: "Just let me be."

Sullavan had kept her hearing loss largely unknown. "The booming applause of a delighted audience was just a small murmur over the years to Margaret Sullavan" wrote Nancy Seely of the New York Post on January 8, 1960 (one week after Sullavan's death). Did the poised and confident mien of the beautiful actress mask a dangerous fear that night after night that she'd miss a critical cue?"

Sullavan underwent an operation by Doctor Julian Lempert in the late 40's, which Brooke characterized as a "success" and restored full hearing to Mother's left ear, but she didn't follow his instructions for reducing down on "diving, shooting, or flying."

Sullavan's words were "bequeathed" at the Lempert Institute of Otymology after her death. “There was so much mistaking of some of the things she did, anxiety, and fear, all of which were a result of her deafness.” Lempert wrote.

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Career

Sullavan's success in obtaining a chorus seat in the Harvard Dramatic Society's 1929 spring production Close Up, a musical written by Harvard senior Bernard Hanighen, who later became a composer for Broadway and Hollywood.

The President of Harvard Dramatic Society, Charles Leatherbee, and Bretaigne Windust, the President of Princeton's Theatre Intime, persuaded Sullavan to join them for their second summer season. Henry Fonda, another University Player, had the comedic lead in Close Up.

Sullavan performed in The Devil in the Cheese, her first on the professional stage, in the summer of 1929. She appeared in the majority of the University Players' 1930 season. She squeezed in one performance with the University Players between the closing of A Modern Virgin's Broadway performance in July and its tour in September in 1931. For the majority of the 18-week 1930–31 winter season in Baltimore, she rejoined the University Players.

Sullavan's parents were reluctant to endorse her choice of career. She was the protagonist of Preston Sturges' Strictly Dishonorable (1930), which her parents attended. Their allegations were dismissed after being confronted with their obvious talent. "I figured I'd have to put up with their yappings on the topic forever," Sullavan said later.

A Shubert scout saw her in the game as well as Lee Shubert himself, and she eventually met Lee Shubert himself. Sullavan was suffering from a bad case of laryngitis at the time, and her voice was huskier than normal. Shubert adored it. Sullavan will remark that she turned that "laryngitis" into a permanent hoarseness by standing in every available draft.

On May 20, 1931, Sullavan performed in A Modern Virgin (a comedy by Elmer Harris) on Broadway and began touring on August 3.

She appeared in four Broadway flops in a row (If Love Were All, Happy Landing, Chrysalis, and Bad Manners), but critics applauded her for her appearances in all of them. Sullavan's Dinner at Eight in New York in March 1933 displaced another actor. John M. Stahl, the movie producer, was on the play and was intrigued by Sullavan's. He decided she would be great for a portrait he was designing, But Yesterday.

Sullavan had already rejected offers for five-year contracts from Paramount and Columbia at that time. Sullavan was offered a three-year, two-pictures-per-year contract worth $1,200 per week. She accepted it and had a clause in her contract that allowed her to return to the stage on occasion. Sullavan did not want to be "owned" by any studio later in her career, and she did not want to be "owned" by any studio.

Sullavan's 24th birthday occurred in Hollywood on May 16, 1933, her 24th birthday. Her debut film in Only Yesterday took place the same year. When she first saw herself in the film's early hours, she was so shocked that she attempted to purchase her contract for $2,500 but Universal refused. Richard Watts, Jr., wrote in The New York Herald Tribune on November 10, 1933 that Sullavan "plays the tragic and lovelorn heroine of this shrewdly sentimental society with such compassion, wisdom, and the clear recognition that she establishes herself as one of the cinema people to watch."

What Now? Sullavan's next role appeared in Little Man. (1934), a film about a couple who are struggling to recover in an impoverished postwar period that Germany has witnessed. Universal was hesitant to produce a film about unemployment, starvation, and homelessness, but Sullavan's Little Man was a crucial initiative. She would rank the film appearance as one of the few Hollywood roles that brought her a great deal of joy.

Sullavan demonstrated her versatility in The Good Fairy (1935). She married William Wyler, the company's director, during the production.

So Red the Rose (1935) by King Vidor dealt with people in the postbellum South and preceded Margaret Mitchell's bestselling book Gone With the Wind by one year and the blockbuster film version by four years. Sullavan was a childish Southern belle who grew into a mature woman.

Sullavan appeared in Next Time We Love (1936), opposite then-unknown James Stewart. Stewart had been campaigning for her to be her leading lady, but the studio feared that she would stage a desperate strike. The film was about a married couple who had broken down over the years. This was the first film made by Sullavan and Stewart together.

Sullavan appeared in The Moon's Our Home (1936) as a newly married couple. Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell were recruited to contribute to the script's dialogue, but Sullavan's insistence was apparently offended. Three Comrades (1938), her seventh film, is a drama set in post-World War I Germany. She received an Academy Award for her work in theater and was named the year's top actress by the New York Film Critics Circle.

Sullavan has reunited with Stewart in The Shopworn Angel (1938). Stewart was a sweet, naive Texas soldier on his way to combat in World War I, which first marries Sullavan. She appeared in The Shining Hour (1938), in which she portrayed Joan Crawford's character as the suicidal sister-in-law. Despite Louis B. Mayer's warning to Crawford that Sullavan might steal the photo from her, Crawford maintained on the casting of Sullavan. Sullavan and Stewart were back in the shop Around the Corner (1940), sharing stories with colleagues who never agreed to exchange letters.

Sullavan appeared in The Mortal Storm, a film about common Germans during Adolf Hitler's rise. Back Street (1941) was praised as one of Sullavan's finest performances, a film in which she ceded top billing to Charles Boyer in order to ensure he would take the male lead role. So Ends Our Night (1941) was a wartime drama in which Sullavan, on loan for a one-picture contract from Universal, was a Jewish exile fleeing the Nazis.

Sullavan was bound to complete her original 1933 deal with Universal, which meant she would appear in two more films for the studio. These films will be back street (1941) and the light comedy Appointment for Love (1941).

'Havoc' (1943) was Sullavan's last film with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She was out of all film roles after its completion. She had often referred to MGM and Universal as "jails."

Sullavan's co-starring roles with James Stewart are just some of their early careers. Sullavan had chosen Next Time We Love in 1935, which was the beginning of Sullavan's involvement in 1935. She had strong reservations about the plot but was forced to "work-off the shaming contract." The script included a role that she felt would be ideal for Stewart, Sullavan's first husband, actor Henry Fonda. Sullavan predicted Stewart would be a major Hollywood celebrity years before, during a casual chat with some fellow Broadway actors, Stewart predicted that he'd be a major Hollywood celebrity.

Stewart, a 1936-1900s MGM contract player, but he was only involved in minor B-movies, securing only small parts. Sullavan, a Universal Studios employee, recommended that Stewart be tested as her leading man. In Next Time We Love, he was lent from MGM to star with Sullavan. During the early stages of production, the inexperienced Stewart had been anxious and uncomfortable, and director Edward H. Griffith began bullying him. However, Sullavan grew fond of Stewart and spent evenings training him and helping him get rid of his clumsy demeanor and hesitant speech that were soon to be renowned. Later, Griffith said, "It was Margaret Sullavan who made James Stewart a star." "That boy came from Universal so I hardly recognized him," MGM's Bill Grady said. Sullavan's husband William Wyler was suspicious of her rehearsing with Stewart privately, according to a Hollywood gossip. Sullavan divorced Wyler in 1936 and married Leland Hayward the same year, they moved to a colonial home just a block away from Stewart's. Stewart's regular visits to Sullavan/Hayward soon reignited the suspicions of his intimate feelings for Sullavan.

The Shopworn Angel (1938), Sullavan and Stewart's second film together, was The Shopworn Angel (1938). "I really felt like the odd guy out in that one," Walter Pidgeon, who appeared in The Shopworn Angel later. It was really just Jimmy and Maggie... It was so obvious that he was in love with her. He came absolutely alive in his scenes with her, playing with a passion and a sincerity that I never imagined. Between 1936 and 1940, Sullavan and Stewart appeared in four films together (Next Time We Love, The Shopworn Angel, The Corner, and The Mortal Storm).

Sullavan went back in time to films from 1943 to 1950. Sullavan preferred the stage to the movies throughout her career. She found that only on stage would she be able to develop her acting skills. "I may take what I've learned back to Hollywood and film it on film," she said in an interview in October 1936 (when she was doing Stage Door on Broadway between movies). "But as long as the flesh-and-blood theatre has me, it will be to the flesh-and-blood theatre that I will attend." I'm really stage-struck. And if that be treason, Hollywood will have to make the most of it."

Brooke, Bridget, and Bill, 5 and 2 years old), another reason for her early retirement from television (1943) was that she wanted to spend more time with her children. She felt she had been neglecting them and was ashamed about it. Sullavan has still did stage work on occasion. She appeared in The Voice of the Turtle (by John Van Druten) on Broadway and later in London (1947). She did not return to the stage until 1952 after a brief appearance with No Sad Songs for Me in 1950.

In Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea, she had a choice for Shester Collyer, who meets fellow sufferer Mr. Miller (played by Herbert Berghof) as the suicidal Hester Collyer. She promised to be in Sabrina Fair by Samuel Taylor in 1953. In 1950, she returned to film for one last photo, No Sad Songs for Me. She played a suburban housewife and mother who discovers she will die of cancer within a year and who then seeks a "second" wife for her soon-to-be-widower husband (Wendell Corey). Natalie Wood, who was 11 years old at the time, plays their daughter. Sullavan had a number of offers for other films after No Sad Songs for Me and its glowing reviews, but she decided to focus on the stage for the remainder of her career.

Sullavan appeared in Janus, a comedy by playwright Carolyn Green, from 1955-1956. Sullavan performed Jessica, who writes under the pen name Janus, and Robert Preston played her husband. From November 1955 to June 1956, the show had 251 performances.

Sullavan's hearing and depression were getting worse in the late 1950s. However, Ruth Goetz, a playwright, decided to do Sweet Love Remembered in 1959. It was Sullavan's first Broadway appearance in four years. Rehearsals began on December 1, 1959. She had mixed emotions about her return to acting, and her depression became apparent soon: "I loathe acting," she said on the day she started rehearsals. "I loathe what it does to my life." It cancels you out. If you're working, you can't live. You are surrounded by an unbreachable wall.

Sullavan appeared as the mystery guest on the television panel show What's My Line? on December 18, 1955.

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