Photograph of Margaret Sullavan.
Margaret Sullavan

Overview

Margaret Brooke Sullavan (May 16, 1909January 1, 1960) was an Oscar-nominated American actress.

Early years

Sullavan was born in Norfolk, Virginia, the daughter of a wealthy stockbroker, Cornelius Sullavan and his wife Garland, nee Brooke. She attended boarding school at Chatham Episcopal Institute (now Chatham Hall), where she was president of the student body and delivered the salutory oration in 1927. She moved to Boston and lived with her half-sister, Weedie, and where she became involved with the Harvard Dramatic Club. She debuted in Close Up in 1929. Another member of the class was Henry Fonda. Charlie Leatherbee and Joshua Logan were in the audience and invited her to join them in Falmouth, Massachusetts to be in the University Players. She appeared in their first production, The Devil in the Cheese, her debut in the professional stage. Eventually she was cast by Lee Shubert in her first Broadway play, A Modern Virgin (1931).

Career

Sullavan arrived in Hollywood on May 16, 1933, her 24th birthday. Her film debut came in 1933 in Only Yesterday and she received her sole Oscar nomination as Best Actress for the WWI-era romance Three Comrades (1938). She co-starred in four films with James Stewart, with whom she and Fonda had acted in a stock company when they were all unknowns: Next Time We Love (1936), The Shopworn Angel (1938), The Mortal Storm and The Shop Around the Corner (both 1940). Other major films during this period include Little Man, What Now? (1934), The Good Fairy (1935, directed by Wyler), The Shining Hour (1938, with Joan Crawford), So Ends Our Night, Back Street, Appointment for Love (all 1941) and Cry 'Havoc' (1943).

Her last screen performance was in the film No Sad Songs for Me (1950), directed by Rudolph Maté and written by Howard Koch. She came out of retirement in 1952 to appear in Terence Rattigan's drama The Deep Blue Sea on Broadway, followed the next year by the Broadway premiere of Samuel A. Taylor's comedy Sabrina Fair. She also appeared on TV in Chevrolet Tele-Theater, Studio One, Magnavox Theater, and Schlitz Playhouse of Stars. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street.

Marriages

Sullavan was married four times. She married Henry Fonda on December 25, 1931. The marriage ended the following year, although Sullavan and "Hank" remained lifelong friends. Her next marriage, to director William Wyler, was equally brief. Her third marriage, to agent and producer Leland Hayward, lasted eleven years and produced three children: Brooke, born July 5, 1937; Bridget, born 1939; and William Leland, born 1941. Sullavan and Hayward divorced in 1947, and three years later she married Kenneth Wagg, to whom she was married at the time of her death.

Death

Sullavan suffered from depression and a congenital hearing defect in her left ear called otosclerosis that worsened as she aged, making her more and more deaf. She was found dead in a hotel room in New Haven, Connecticut, having succumbed to a deliberate overdose of barbiturates at the age of 50, January 1, 1960. (Her daughter Bridget died nine months later from an overdose.)

Her daughter, actress Brooke Hayward, wrote Haywire, a memoir about her family. It was made into a television movie starring Lee Remick.

Quotation

:"Most actors are basically neurotic people. Terribly, terribly unhappy. That's one of the reasons they become actors. Nobody well adjusted would ever want to expose himself or herself to a large group of strangers. Think of it. Insanity! Generally, by their very nature - that is if they're at all dedicated - actors do not make good parents. They are altogether egotistical and selfish. The better the actor - and I hate to say it, the bigger the star - why, the more that seems to be true. Honestly, I don't think I've ever known one - not one! - star who was successfully able to combine a career and family life." - Margaret Sullavan

References

External links

* * Margaret Sullavan's gravesite * Brooke Hayward, Haywire (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1977) ISBN 0-394-49325-7
Who is Margaret Sullavan connected to?
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This biography says:

...The marriage ended the following year, although Sullavan and "Hank" remained lifelong friends. Her next marriage, to director William Wyler, was equally brief. Her third marriage, to agent and producer Leland Hayward, lasted eleven years and produced three children: Brooke, born July 5, 1937; Bridget, born 1939; and William Leland, born 1941...

That biography says:

...Wyler was briefly married to Margaret Sullavan (25 November 1934 - 13 March 1936) and married Margaret Tallichet on 23 October 1938 until his death; they had four children.

That biography says:

...Later in 1998, Hanks reteamed with his Sleepless in Seattle co-star Meg Ryan for another romantic comedy, You've Got Mail, a remake of 1940's The Shop Around the Corner, which starred Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan....

That biography says:

...The film reunited Lubitsch with his Merry Widow screenwriter Raphaelson, and starred James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as a pair of bickering coworkers in Budapest, each unaware that the other is their secret romantic correspondent...
How is Margaret Sullavan connected to Vivien Leigh? Tell the world.

That biography says:

...His acting talents led him to be invited to the University Players, a performing arts club of Ivy League musicians and thespians, with Joshua Logan as the director and Margaret Sullavan as the leading lady. Stewart developed an immediate crush on her, but she soon left the group for her Broadway debut in A Modern Virgin.He performed in bit parts in the Players' productions in Cape Cod during the summer of 1932 after he graduated, when he joined the troupe which included Henry Fonda and Sullavan (who suddenly decided to marry each other)...

That biography says:

...After Show Boat she had major roles in MGM's Saratoga (1937), starring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, The Shopworn Angel (1938) with Margaret Sullavan, and The Mad Miss Manton (1938), starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda....
How is Margaret Sullavan connected to Greta Garbo? Tell the world.

That biography says:

...He also appeared with Gene Tierney, Ann Sheridan, Maureen O'Hara, Nancy Carroll, Donna Reed, Gail Russell, Margaret Sullavan, Virginia Mayo, Bebe Daniels, Carole Lombard and Joan Bennett....

This biography says:

...She moved to Boston and lived with her half-sister, Weedie, and where she became involved with the Harvard Dramatic Club. She debuted in Close Up in 1929. Another member of the class was Henry Fonda. Charlie Leatherbee and Joshua Logan were in the audience and invited her to join them in Falmouth, Massachusetts to be in the University Players...

That biography says:

...He went east to perform with the Provincetown Players and Joshua Logan's University Players, an intercollegiate summer stock company, where he worked with Margaret Sullavan, his future wife, and began a lifelong friendship with James Stewart.

That biography says:

...He played in three classics of unrequited love with some of greatest leading ladies : All This and Heaven Too (1940), opposite Bette Davis, Hold Back the Dawn (1941), opposite Olivia de Havilland, and Back Street (1941), opposite Margaret Sullavan. Charles was made a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1942....

This biography says:

...Her last screen performance was in the film No Sad Songs for Me (1950), directed by Rudolph Maté and written by Howard Koch. She came out of retirement in 1952 to appear in Terence Rattigan's drama The Deep Blue Sea on Broadway, followed the next year by the Broadway premiere of Samuel A...

This biography says:

...She debuted in Close Up in 1929. Another member of the class was Henry Fonda. Charlie Leatherbee and Joshua Logan were in the audience and invited her to join them in Falmouth, Massachusetts to be in the University Players...

This biography says:

...Her daughter, actress Brooke Hayward, wrote Haywire, a memoir about her family. It was made into a television movie starring Lee Remick.

This biography says:

...She appeared in their first production, The Devil in the Cheese, her debut in the professional stage. Eventually she was cast by Lee Shubert in her first Broadway play, A Modern Virgin (1931).

This biography says:

...She came out of retirement in 1952 to appear in Terence Rattigan's drama The Deep Blue Sea on Broadway, followed the next year by the Broadway premiere of Samuel A. Taylor's comedy Sabrina Fair. She also appeared on TV in Chevrolet Tele-Theater, Studio One, Magnavox Theater, and Schlitz Playhouse of Stars...

That biography says:

...Her name is said to be Catherine [sic] Hepburn. Not very pretty, I thought, but Mr. Altman said she has something. Margaret Sullavan, the Broadway actress, was there too!"...