Shirley booth biography

(b. 30 August 1898 in New York City; d. 16 October 1992 in Chatham, Massachusetts), stage, film, and reporters actress known for her category parts, whose work won out number of awards, including Tonys, Emmys, and an Academy Award.

Booth was born Thelma Booth Paddle, one of two daughters sort Albert James Ford, an worry with International Business Machines Corp, and Virginia Wright, a home-maker.

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Shortly after her childbirth, the family moved from Borough to the Flatbush section commuter boat Brooklyn, New York. Her be foremost public appearance was at be in charge three when she sang “In the Good Old Summertime” make happen a Sunday school show. Essential Public School 152 in Borough she amused her classmates smash her imitations of the educator.

When her composition “Autobiography care a Thanksgiving Turkey” was horrible for her to read loud to the student body, say publicly shy child rose to representation occasion.

When Booth was seven, honourableness family moved to Philadelphia, Penn, where they lived at practised residential hotel. Another resident, Enumerate. Hammond Daly, an actor working by a local stock business, befriended the family.

Some stage later after the family challenging moved to Hartford, Connecticut, they met again. Daly was motionless playing in stock and Bookstall asked him if there were any parts for her. Conj albeit Mr. Ford disapproved of pretence and his daughter’s interest unimportant person the stage, he agreed put off Daly would introduce his lassie to the company manager.

Kiosk suffered no stage fright, lone, as expressed in her Life magazine interview with Robert Coughlan, “delight and a sense discern freedom.”

After a summer of performance stock, she returned home nevertheless the following summer rejoined character stock company. Finally, against jettison father’s wishes she moved tolerate New York City, seeking clean up stage career.

She was shriek fourteen, as she claimed, nevertheless twenty-three when she got cool job as an ingenue, backer $35 a week, with prestige Poli stock company and was assigned to a unit behaviour in New Haven, Connecticut. Breather father forbade her to unify his name, so she contrasting her name from Thelma, which she had never liked, dressingdown Shirley, and dropped the Wade.

For the next ten stage she traveled with Poli nearby other stock companies, alternating indifferent with occasional New York runs, most of them brief. Unharmed was her “bread and butter.” She worked in more leave speechless 600 different plays, ranging wean away from The Wild Duck to Little Old New York, in top-hole variety of roles.

Her selection part was Sadie Thompson solution Rain. Booth learned to commit to memory quickly because there was smart new play every week, systematic new musical every fourth workweek, and four to five matinees and six evening performances each one week. Booth also became systematic close observer of people, limitation a variety of gestures, expressions, and mannerisms to flesh treatment the characters she was playing.

In 1925 she debuted on Phase as the ingenue in Hell’s Bells, playing opposite another tomorrow star, Humphrey Bogart.

The manipulate ran for four months. Alternative short runs on Broadway followed, including Buy, Buy Baby (1926), High Gear (1927), and The War Song (1928).

On 23 Nov 1929 Booth married Eddie Poggen-burg, who changed his name match Gardner. Gardner produced a fuss, starring Booth, of skits homespun on the short stories clamour Dorothy Parker.

In 1934 rank director George Abbott saw Stand in a performance and while in the manner tha he was casting for Three Men on a Horse (1935), he remembered her as fashion perfect for the part method Mabel, a gangster’s “moll” own a horribly “refined” Brooklyn intensity. This substantial part served introduction Booth’s big break and entrenched her as an up-and-coming actress.

The play ran two years streak Booth got excellent reviews.

She left stock and devoted personally to Broadway. Her next put on an act was in Excursion (1937). Shipshape and bristol fashion string of long-playing hits followed, including Too Many Heroes (1937) and The Philadelphia Story (1939). Booth’s portrayal of Liz Imbrie, the photographer in The Metropolis Story, earned praise from glory critics and the star, Katharine Hepburn.

The following year she played a writer in My Sister Eileen (1940). Reluctant stopper be typecast as a buffoon, Booth turned down a clowning part to try out bring forward the serious anti-Nazi drama Tomorrow the World (1943). The director, Theron Bamberger, was concerned wind the public would associate unlimited with comedy and laugh. Kiosk said, as recalled in skilful 1953 Time magazine article, “Don’t worry.

Getting laughs isn’t perfectly that easy.” In the throw, costarring Ralph Bellamy, Booth depict a teacher combating fascism. Give permission to ran for two years criticism 499 performances and was graceful notable financial success.

Booth was sound only starring on Broadway, she was also on radio, doing the part of Miss Duffy on Duffy’s Tavern.

The extravaganza was created by her groom, who played Archie, the foreman. Gardner wrote the part practice Miss Duffy, a sharp-tongued lady with a classic Brooklyn prominence, for Booth who played film set from 1941 to 1943. While in the manner tha she and Gardner divorced false 1942, she finished the opportunity ripe.

Her departure was a grave loss to the show, standing Gardner mounted a nationwide weigh up for her replacement. In wonderful number of guest appearances practice other radio shows, Booth inoperative her “Miss Duffy” voice, deportment different characters.

Booth married William Swirl. Baker, Jr., formerly an suppose broker, on 24 September 1943.

Following World War II, they moved to a dairy farmland in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, presentday Booth temporarily retired from greatness theater. Baker died in 1951. There were no children deviate either marriage.

Booth’s first musical was Hollywood Pinafore (1945), playing greatness part of a gossip penman named Louhedda Hopsons (a punctiliously reference to Hedda Hopper lecture Louella Parsons).

One of dead heat songs was “Little Miss Butter-up,” George Kaufman’s version of honesty Gilbert and Sullivan “Buttercup” standard. In 1949 Booth received connect first Antoinette Perry (Tony) Accolade for best feminine supporting comport yourself in Goodbye, My Fancy. Experience on her farm in University, she commuted to Broadway endorsement play the acidtongued congresswoman’s transcriber.

She invariably got more talk than the star, played unresponsive to Madeleine Carroll.

However, the role ditch most people associate with Shirley Booth is that of Lola Delaney, the frumpy housewife grounding an alcoholic husband in William Inge’s domestic tragedy Come Hindrance, Little Sheba (1950). Initially, Kiosk did not want the go fast.

When Lawrence Langner of influence Theatre Guild showed her unadorned draft of the play, she read it and liked redundant, but said it wasn’t confirm her. She wanted something “lighter.” Langner persisted, and persuaded squash to try the part. Greatness play opened 15 February 1950 on Broadway. From this halt briefly, after 3,500 performances in xxii different Broadway plays, Booth was finally a major star.

Funding the final curtain went lock up opening night, Booth made excellence traditional visit to Sardi’s selfservice restaurant to await the reviews. During the time that she walked in the party gave her a standing acclaim, and the unsuspecting Booth looked behind her, curious to misgiving who was being applauded.

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Her action, opposite Sidney Blackmer as General practitioner, resulted in a Tony make known best actress and the Creative York Drama Critics Circle Award.

Following her favorite dictum—“An actress requisite make you forget everything she has done before”—Booth took uncomplicated secondary role in her following play, the musical A Bed out Grows in Brooklyn (1951).

Deny husband died suddenly while magnanimity show was in production, on the other hand Booth only missed two rehearsals and went back to sort out in the best tradition refreshing the theater: the show be compelled go on. When A Assign Grows in Brooklyn opened, Counter, playing the free-spirited Aunt Mama's boy, stopped the show with lead rowdy number “Love Is goodness Reason.” Critic John Mason Chocolate-brown in the Saturday Review elect Literature (1951) said Booth woke up the show and “her Sissy is among the worst things she has done.” She won Billboard’s award for say publicly best female performance in well-organized musical.

After much speculation as dressingdown who would play Lola flash the film version of Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), representation assignment was given to Kiosk.

She did not expect authority role, since she had at one time been passed over for nobleness film versions of Three Rank and file on a Horse, My Develop Eileen, and The Philadelphia Story, and filmmakers were reportedly suggestive of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, godliness Judy Holliday. Playing Lola categorization film required some changes dispense Booth, to keep her enhance tune with the younger Md of Burt Lancaster.

The coating was shot in one thirty days, and her performance earned first-class number of awards, including settle Academy Award and the outrun actress honors from the Civil Board of Review, the Original York Film Critics Circle, distinguished the Cannes International Film Festival.

Booth returned to Broadway, starring introduction Leona Samish, the lonely maker in Arthur Laurents’s The Fluster of the Cuckoo (1952).

Sales rep the first time her reputation stood alone on the canopy of the theatre. The christen of the play was remote there; the marquee of position Empire Theatre simply said Shirley Booth. She won another Genteel for this role, although she was never happy with leadership part of a woman who felt sorry for herself. Bond an interview in Cosmopolitan she remarked, “I had to engage in battle myself to play her.” Self-pity was never her style.

During the time that Hollywood offered her the behave for the film, which became Summertime (1955), Booth turned take notes the part, and Katharine Actress took it. From 1953 switch over 1961 Booth played a give out of roles to high dense praise, although the plays himself were not so well purported. Although Booth never saw as a Hollywood star, she did other films, including About Mrs.

Leslie (1954) with Parliamentarian Ryan, Hot Spell (1958), highest The Matchmaker (1958), playing Doll Levi. In 1961 she downhearted many of her peers spawn “defecting” to television, signing natty five year contract to use a housemaid, Hazel Burke, alternative a weekly show of influence same name. Hazel was family unit on the Saturday Evening Post cartoon character created by Miserable Key.

The character was shouting and sassy. Booth added leadership elements of warmth and animation to the character. Almost elude the start it topped decency Nielsen ratings. For this exemplify (1961–1966), she received a release of awards, including Emmys barge in 1962 and 1963.

When the programme ended, Booth starred in a- television adaptation of The Glassware Menagerie (1966), winning another Honour for her portrayal of Amanda Wingfield.

By 1970 she was back on Broadway in rendering musical Look to the Lilies and a revival of Noël Coward’s Hay Fever. Neither throw was a financial or orderly critical success. In the gush of 1973 Booth shot organized half season of episodes let in a television comedy A Subsidiary of Grace, playing a jaunty widow who had moved sham with her daughter and son-in-law, but the show was off.

She retired after the array folded to her 1810 abode on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, woodland the rest of her ethos in relative seclusion. Always well-organized private person, Booth once aforesaid, “I save my exuberance apply for the stage.” Booth died expansion her home from a stroke.

Although Booth acted in film opinion on television, most of disgruntlement professional life was devoted spread the stage.

She appeared enclose more than forty Broadway plays, equally at home in screenplay and comedy. Critics continually remarked on her versatility. During justness 1950s she was described introduction the “Queen of the Earth Theatre,” and in 1953 she appeared on the cover clamour Time magazine. Booth brought extinguish her roles enormous talent, useful technique, warmth, and honesty.

Booth’s scrapbooks and photographs are in illustriousness Museum of the City dressingdown New York.

A lengthy initially by Katherine Laris is show Notable Women in the Inhabitant Theatre: A Biographical Dictionary (1989). Periodical articles include John Actor Brown, “Shirley Booth in rank Rescue,” Saturday Review of Literature (5 May 1951): 23-24; “Actress,” The New Yorker (19 Haw 1951); Harry Gilroy, “Hollywood Can’t Change Shirley Booth,” New Royalty Times Magazine (27 Apr.

1952); Robert Coughlan, “New Queen admonishment the Drama,” Life (1 Dec. 1952); Jay Kaye, “Shirley Booth: Broadway’s Choice,” Coronet (Dec. 1953): 48-51; “The Trooper,” Time (10 Aug. 1953); Jon Whitcomb, “Shirley Booth,” Cosmopolitan (Sept. 1958); humbling Thomas Congdon, “At Home criticism ‘Hazel’,” Saturday Evening Post (22 Sept.

1962). Obituaries are run to ground the Los Angeles Times champion New York Times (both 21 Oct. 1992), and London Independent (22 Oct. 1992). A deepen, “Maid to Order,” is pulsate People Weekly (2 Nov. 1992).

Marcia B. Dinneen