Teresa Wright facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Teresa Wright
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Wright in 1953
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| Born |
Muriel Teresa Wright
October 27, 1918 Harlem, New York, U.S.
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| Died | March 6, 2005 (aged 86) New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
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| Resting place | Evergreen Cemetery |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1941–1997 |
| Spouse(s) |
Niven Busch
(m. 1942; div. 1952)Robert Anderson
(m. 1959; div. 1978) |
| Children | 2 |
Muriel Teresa Wright (born October 27, 1918 – died March 6, 2005) was a talented American actress. She was famous for her roles in classic films like The Little Foxes (1941) and Mrs. Miniver (1942). She even won an Academy Award for her acting.
Teresa Wright was also known for her work in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Shadow of a Doubt (1943). She also starred in the award-winning movie The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Many top directors, like William Wyler and Alfred Hitchcock, praised her acting skills.
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Early life and first steps in acting
Teresa Wright was born in Harlem, New York City, on October 27, 1918. Her full name was Muriel Teresa Wright. She grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey.
When she was a teenager, Teresa saw a play called Victoria Regina. This made her want to become an actress. She started performing in school plays. Later, she earned a scholarship to a theater in Massachusetts.
After high school in 1938, she moved to New York. She shortened her name to "Teresa Wright." She became an understudy for a role in the play Our Town. An understudy learns a role so they can perform if the main actor cannot. Teresa soon took over the role when the original actress left.
Becoming a Hollywood star
In 1939, Teresa Wright was performing in a play called Life with Father. A famous movie producer named Samuel Goldwyn saw her. He was very impressed.
Goldwyn quickly hired her for a movie role. It was for the 1941 film The Little Foxes. She played the daughter of actress Bette Davis. This was her first movie role.
Winning awards for her early films
Teresa Wright quickly became a big star. For The Little Foxes, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. This was amazing for her very first film!
The next year, 1942, was even more incredible. She was nominated for two Academy Awards. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Mrs. Miniver. In the same year, she was also nominated for Best Actress for The Pride of the Yankees. In this film, she played the wife of baseball legend Lou Gehrig.
Teresa Wright is the only actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for her first three films. This is a very special achievement in Hollywood history.
Working with famous directors
In 1943, Teresa Wright starred in Shadow of a Doubt. This was a suspenseful movie directed by the famous Alfred Hitchcock. She played a young woman who suspects her uncle is a murderer. Hitchcock admired her acting skills and how well she prepared for her roles.
In 1946, she gave another great performance in The Best Years of Our Lives. This movie won many awards. It was about soldiers returning home after World War II.
Later, she appeared in The Men (1950). This film was special because it was the first movie for actor Marlon Brando. She also starred in the western Pursued (1947). Her first husband, Niven Busch, wrote the story for this film.
Challenges in her career
In 1948, Teresa Wright had a disagreement with Samuel Goldwyn, the producer who discovered her. She felt the studio system was too controlling. She wanted more freedom in her career. This led to her contract being canceled.
This meant she earned less money for her next films. For example, for The Men, she earned $20,000 instead of the $125,000 she used to get.
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During the 1950s, Teresa Wright acted in several movies that were not very successful. However, critics often praised her performances. She also started working more in television and theater. She received Emmy Award nominations for her TV roles in The Miracle Worker (1957) and The Margaret Bourke-White Story (1960).
In 1960, Teresa Wright received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. One star was for her work in movies, and the other was for her television roles.
Later career and final roles
In the 1960s, Teresa Wright returned to the New York stage. She performed in several plays, including Mary, Mary. She also made many appearances on television shows. These included The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Bonanza.
In the 1970s and 1980s, she continued to act on stage and TV. She won a Drama Desk Award for her performance in the play Morning's at Seven in 1980. In 1989, she received another Emmy nomination for the TV series Dolphin Cove. Her very last TV role was in the show Picket Fences in 1996.
Her last movie roles included Somewhere in Time (1980) and The Good Mother (1988). Her final film role was in John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997), directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Personal life and family
Teresa Wright was married twice. Her first husband was writer Niven Busch. They were married from 1942 to 1952 and had two children: a son named Niven Terence and a daughter named Mary-Kelly.
She later married playwright Robert Anderson in 1959. They divorced in 1978 but remained good friends.
In her later years, Teresa Wright lived quietly in Connecticut. She sometimes attended film festivals. She also loved the New York Yankees baseball team. Her role in Pride of the Yankees made her a fan. In 1998, she even threw the first pitch at Yankee Stadium.
Her daughter, Mary-Kelly, writes books for children and young adults. Teresa also had two grandchildren. One of them, Jonah Smith, became a film producer.
Death and lasting memory
Teresa Wright passed away on March 6, 2005, at the age of 86. She died from a heart attack in Connecticut. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.
Her name was even read aloud at a Yankees Old Timer's Day event. This showed how much she was a part of the Yankees family.
In 2016, a book about her life was published. It was called A Girl's Got to Breathe: The Life of Teresa Wright. It shared many details about her amazing career and personal life.
Images for kids
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Wright in 1953
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Wright, Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver (1942)
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Wright and Joseph Cotten in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
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Publicity photo for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); Hoagy Carmichael seated at piano and (standing from left) Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, and Wright
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Wright and Lew Ayres in The Capture (1950)
See also
In Spanish: Teresa Wright para niños
