The Greatest Supporting Actresses

In Hollywood's Golden Age there were a number of great supporting actresses whose talent and looks rivaled the famous stars of the era. I would like to briefly discuss my favorite ladies, whose films I will always watch as they are the real stars to me.

Anne Revere
Probably my favorite character actress of the 1940s, Revere was a wonderful actress who was nominated 3 times for Best Supporting actress and won for playing Elizabeth Taylor's mother in National Velvet. Revere's greatest performance was in Gentleman's Agreement. Playing the mother of Gregory Peck, she was the one real thing in this preachy Elia Kazan-directed study of Antisemitism. Watching this turgid film now, you can see a great actress doing what she did best. Unfortunately, the House Un-American Activities Committee destroyed Revere's career, but she did return to Broadway and won a Tony for Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic. She was the very best, and was the highlight of any movie she appeared in.

Fay Bainter
Bainter won an Oscar for playing Bette Davis' aunt in the great William Wyler melodrama Jezebel in 1938; she was also nominated for Best Actress that year for White Banners. Bainter appeared in a number of wonderful films and ended her movie career in William Wyler's The Children's Hour in 1961. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress as the grandmother who wrecks the lives of two teachers when she spreads the lesbian lie about them. Bainter was simply a great star— supporting or not.

Gale Sondergaard
Sondergaard won the first Best Supporting Oscar given in 1936 for playing the evil Faith in Anthony Adverse. Almost always playing the heavy, Sondergaard’s near-wordless performance as the Eurasian wife in The Letter (alongside Bette Davis) was one of her best. She was also featured as the heavy in the Sherlock Holmes The Spider Woman, and was again nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Anna and the King of Siam— this time playing a good woman for a change. But like Anne Revere, her movie career was wrecked by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Sondergaard was a great villainess and stole every scene she was ever in.

Selena Royle
Royle’s best part was playing the mother in The Fighting Sullivans, the true story of the Iowa couple whose 5 sons were killed on the same ship in World War II, but she was truly outstanding in every role she played. Her last great performance was Joan Crawford's society mentor in The Damned Don't Cry, and like Revere and Sondergaard, the HUAC pretty much wrecked Royle's movie career. However, if you want to see great acting, watch the scene in The Fighting Sullivans when the mother receives the news of her sons' deaths. Incredible!

Irene Rich
Mostly a silent film actress, Rich’s great role as Margaret Sullavan's mother in the anti-Nazi film The Mortal Storm was her best work. Playing the wife of the "non Aryan" Frank Morgan (Wizard of Oz), Rich was lovely and compelling as the mother whose family is destroyed by the rise of Hitler. Rich had two more good roles, in the John Wayne Angel and the Badman and John Ford's Fort Apache. However, her scenes with Morgan as the luminous Sullavan are the highlights of this vastly underrated film.

Ruth Nelson
One of the founders of the famous Group Theater in the 1930s, Nelson’s best role was playing John Garfield's mother in the rich melodrama Humoresque. Her scenes as the wise Jewish mother, and her showdown with Joan Crawford, are truly memorable; she should have been nominated for a supporting Oscar that year. Married to director John Cromwell, Nelson's career was also partially destroyed by HUAC, but she returned to films in Robert Benton's wonderful The Late Show with Lily Tomlin and Art Carney, and she was fine as Robert De Niro's mother in Awakenings. If you want to see both Joan Crawford and Ruth Nelson at their very best, check out Humoresque.

Truly, they don't make them like that anymore.

These six actresses were brilliant performers whose work often outshone the stars they were supposedly supporting.