Belated Birthday to Thelma Ritter

Thelma Ritter (February 14, 1902 – February 5, 1969) was a Tony Award winning , and Academy Award Nominated American character actress of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

Early life

Ritter was born in Brooklyn, New York. After appearing in high school plays and stock companies, she trained as an actress at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She went on to establish a stage career but took a hiatus to raise her two children (her daughter is the actress Monica Moran) by her advertising-executive husband, Joseph Moran. Ritter then resumed her career on radio in the early 1940s.

Career

Ritter did stock theater and radio shows early in her career, without much impact. Ritter's first movie role was in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). The 45-year-old made a memorable impression in a brief uncredited part, as a frustrated mother unable to find the toy that Kris Kringle has promised to her son. Her second role, in writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives (1949), also left a mark, although Ritter was again not listed in the credits.

Mankiewicz kept Ritter in mind, and cast her in his All About Eve the following year. An Oscar nomination led to popularity, and a second Oscar nomination followed for Mitchell Leisen's' classic screwball comedy The Mating Season (1951) starring Gene Tierney, John Lund and Miriam Hopkins. Ritter enjoyed steady film work for the next dozen years. She also appeared in many of the episodic drama TV series of the 1950s, such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, General Electric Theater, and The United States Steel Hour.

Throughout her career, Ritter was nominated for an Academy Award six times but never received one. She co-hosted the Oscar ceremony in 1954, trading wisecracks with Bob Hope.

The diminutive, gravel-voiced Ritter gained great acclaim as a premiere character actress, known for her comic timing and sassy one-liners. She was most typically cast as the sardonic, seen-it-all housekeeper who saw through her boss's vanity and frequently told him or her so. But she was also fiercely protective, and neither trusted nor tolerated fools or con men. Ritter would trade on this irascible screen persona for the rest of her life.

Her unsentimental, hard-boiled fatalism could be used in other ways. In occasional non-comedic turns, she projected an unglamorous world-weariness, notably in Pickup on South Street (1953).

Some of her best - known roles include Bette Davis's devoted maid in All About Eve (1950), as Gene Tierney's maid/mother-in-law in The Mating Season (1951), James Stewart's nurse in Rear Window (1954), and as Doris Day's housekeeper in Pillow Talk (1959). Her turn in John Huston's The Misfits (1961), where she played opposite Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, also garnered favorable reviews.

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards
Nominated Best Actress in a Supporting Role for:
· All About Eve (1950)
· The Mating Season (1951)
· With a Song in My Heart (1952)
· Pickup on South Street (1953)
· Pillow Talk (1959)
· Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)


(Having never actually won the award, she is tied with Deborah Kerr for the most nominations for an actress for an acting award without winning. The record for all actors is Peter O'Toole with eight.) Deborah Kerr and Peter O'Toole would both be given Honorary Oscars.

Emmy Awards
Nominated Emmy Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Goodyear Television Playhouse for episode "The Catered Affair"

Golden Globe Awards
Nominated for Best Supporting Actress for:
· All About Eve (1950)
· The Mating Season (1951)
· Boeing Boeing (1965)
·
Tony Awards
Awarded Best Actress (Musical) (1957) for New Girl in Town in a tie with her co-star, Gwen Verdon

IMDB
www.imdb.com/name/nm0728812/

Thelma at The Golden Years
www.thegoldenyears.org/ritter.html

Thelma at Reel Classics
www.reelclassics.com/Actress...tter.htm

Thelma at Great Character Actors
www.dougmacaulay.com/kingspu...ex_2.php

Thelma at Scene Stealers
www.cinematical.com/2006/06/...a-ritter/



Quotes

When a man and a woman see each other and like each other they ought to come together - wham - like a couple of taxis on Broadway, not sit around analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle.”

"We've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes sir. How's that for a bit of homespun philosophy?"

"Intelligence. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence."