Ann Blyth, the versatile Hollywood star who earned an Oscar nomination at age 17 for playing Joan Crawford's wayward daughter in Mildred Pierce and later sang opposite Mario Lanza in MGM musicals such as The Great Caruso, died Wednesday at her home in Rancho Santa Fe, California, at age 98. Her daughter Eileen McNulty confirmed the cause of death as natural causes, with family at her side.
Early Stardom and Career Highlights
One of the last surviving actors from the Hollywood studio system, Blyth appeared in youth films and dramas including Another Part of the Forest. Her co-stars included Bing Crosby, Gregory Peck, and Robert Mitchum. By the late 1950s, she had stopped making films to spend more time with her children, but she continued working in TV musicals and dramas, and toured in stage productions from Show Boat to The Sound of Music.
Blyth began acting and singing at an early age. Her first major break came at 13 when she was cast as Paul Lukas's daughter in Lillian Hellman's anti-Nazi play Watch on the Rhine, which also starred Bette Davis. She performed with the play for nearly a year on Broadway and another year on tour. When the play reached Los Angeles, Universal Studios signed her to a term contract starting at $175 per week.
Breakthrough with 'Mildred Pierce'
Blyth's loan-out to Warner Bros. for Mildred Pierce elevated her career and led to more mature roles. The film, a James M. Cain thriller about vengeance and calculation, was adapted for the screen by Billy Wilder in 1944. Joan Crawford won the 1945 Oscar for playing Mildred, a waitress who builds a restaurant empire. Blyth was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Veda, the spoiled daughter who seduces her mother's second husband (Zachary Scott) and then shoots him in a jealous rage.
Directed by Michael Curtiz of Casablanca fame, Mildred Pierce was a memorable film noir set mostly at night. For Blyth, it was a major departure from her cheerful musicals and a stretch for an actress who had been described in magazine articles as 'Incorruptible!', 'Angelic Annie', and 'Ann Blyth: Success Without an Enemy'.
Recovery from Injury and Return to Acting
In 1946, Blyth broke her back in a toboggan accident, threatening her career. She spent seven months in a body cast and another seven months in a wheelchair, relying on her Roman Catholic faith for strength. 'The busy, exciting world I had known faded away, and my life slowed down to little things,' she later told the Associated Press. 'But even here I found myself blessed, for a new sense of prayer began to unfold to me.'
After recovering, she appeared as the love interest for Sonny Tufts in Swell Guy, Howard Duff in Brute Force, and Mickey Rooney in the prizefight film Killer McCoy. She also displayed her dramatic skill in A Woman's Vengeance as a young woman in love with a suspected wife-killer played by Charles Boyer. Her strongest role after Mildred Pierce came in Another Part of the Forest, Hellman's prequel to The Little Foxes. Blyth played the young Regina Hubbard, a role created as an adult on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead and in the film by Bette Davis.
Musical Career and Later Life
Blyth's career turned in 1951 when she starred with Mario Lanza in The Great Caruso. Her lilting soprano complemented his tenor, and they were cast together in The Student Prince. However, the temperamental Lanza dropped out after recording his songs, and British actor Edmund Purdom acted the role while lip-syncing to Lanza's recordings. Blyth also co-starred with Howard Keel in Rose Marie and Kismet.
Her other films included Top o' the Morning with Bing Crosby, The World in His Arms with Gregory Peck, and a reunion with Donald O'Connor in The Buster Keaton Story. Her final film was The Helen Morgan Story in 1957, co-starring Paul Newman.
Born in 1928 in Mount Kisco, New York, to an Irish mother and an English valet father, Blyth grew up in New York City. After her father left the family, her mother Nan supported herself and two daughters by washing clothes and working in beauty parlors. Blyth began appearing on a New York radio show at age 5 and spent three years studying and performing with the San Carlo Opera Company. Her mother died of cancer before Blyth's breakout performance in Mildred Pierce.
In 1953, Blyth married Dr. James McNulty, brother of tenor-comedian Dennis Day. They had five children and remained married until his death in 2007. In 1954, weeks before her son Timothy was born, she made television history by performing 'Secret Love' at the Oscars while visibly pregnant, singing, 'Once I had a secret love... and my secret love's no secret anymore.'
