As she passes by to serve another customer, she stops, leans close to me as I’m reading your blog and asks: “Who is that?” I say, “It’s Dorothy McGuire. She was one of the big actresses of the 40′s. I’m into old films, and on this site people write about films and stars from the 30′s and 40′s.” The waitress said, “McGuire? Hmmm. She’s very beautiful.” And I say “thank you for asking.” I get my tea and drink…and feel vaguely emotional.

Nah…it’s not the caffeine. It’s the fact that this waitress noticed and commented on McGuire. It’s the fact that your essay is wonderfully written and I kind of feel totally ashamed at my sometimes flippant writing on the TCM Message Board. You’ve inspired and aspired me to write more seriously. I’ve become a big Dorothy McGuire fan in recent years. You capture it so well when you write:

“She was unconventional in her naturalism; neither a glossy fantasy nor a femme fatale, but something in between that Hollywood found vexing to cast–an undeniably intelligent actress,’

and the comparisons to Betty Field, Martha Scott, Margaret O’Sullavan and their ilk are very apropos.

Thank you for the essay and your writing. Maybe I’m getting touched in my old age…or just being touched by great writing.

Thanx!

I saw her in the NYC production of “Night of the Iguana”. One reviewer of the show included an anecdote about how, at the performance he saw, there was a woman in the audience who got impatient for the show to start and began to be disruptive, calling for Dorothy McGuire, and angering the audience. The actress eventually came out, spoke softly to the woman and led her out, saying to the audience, “I just want you to know, this is another human being.” I think the warmth she brought to her roles was really a part of who she was.

Hi Jacqueline:
Thanks a lot for the link to that radio version of A Doll’s House. The nuanced clarity of Dorothy McGuire‘s voice is wonderful to hear. If you read the last part of this post, you might be a little surprised to learn more about that role of Nora in her career.

Oh, Marylin,
I’m so glad that I’m not alone in my love for but fear of watching Old Yeller. It’s a great movie, but SO sad and so true about growing up in any time.

Hi Jenni,
I hope that you enjoy Till The End of Time, Friendly Persuasion, and A Summer Place when you have a chance to see them and will post your impressions. I’d love to see them.

Joe aka Mongo,
I’m glad you liked the article too. While I was chagrined to see that the Academy neglected to mention Ms. McGuire‘s name during the In Memoriam segment of the March, 2002 awards show, (supposedly due to time constraints–a real first in the history of the seemingly endless Academy Award show history, no doubt), it seems that they might have tried to make amends the following year, but no!? Ah, well, the Academy Awards are about promoting movies now more than in the past, I guess.

Hi Bronxgirl,
I’m glad that you enjoyed the blog and that we can agree about Invitation (1951), one of the few times that Dorothy McGuire seemed to play a part strictly for commercial reasons. I’m glad that you enjoyed the blog, though!

Dear Al Lowe,
Your generous remarks make me so glad that I even tried to tackle this blog! I hope that it helps some people appreciate Dorothy McGuire, or to at least give her films a try.

I’ve heard about gorgeous Guy Madison‘s show about Wild Bill Hickok, but have never seen it. I guess it wasn’t in syndication in the ’60s and ’70s like every other show ever made in the ’50s was back then. As to Gottfried Reinhardt, I can’t agree that Two Faced Woman was anything but a disaster, but I did like The Story of Three Loves and aspects of Betrayed (1954) which I thought may have been intended by the participants as a send-up of all WWII espionage movies. This was particularly evident when Victor Mature lurched on to the screen and said, (no kidding) “You’re beautiful when you’re angry” to Lana Turner and introduced himself saying “I am…(dramatic pause)…The Scarf!

Dore Schary seems to have been a decent screenwriter and certainly nurtured many talented people at RKO before he left for MGM, but I agree, he wasn’t and shouldn’t have tried to be a mogul.

One More Dorothy McGuire Story:

In the postwar years, David O. Selznick toyed with the idea of using his frozen assets in such countries as Sweden to make inexpensive, quality movies in Europe. One pipe dream involved casting Dorothy McGuire as Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, to be shot in Norway with an American cast (with Walter Pidgeon or Robert Mitchum as the husband–what was he thinking?) and a Swedish crew. The prominent Swedish director Alf Sjöberg was hired along with his odd screenwriter to prepare the script. An employee of Selznick reported this man was “a queer looking individual: very young, terribly thin and tall, with hair almost down to his shoulders, and huge eyes deep in his head. He speaks little English, but said he understood me very well.” The 29 year old prepared a script with the boffo upbeat ending that Selznick asked for, but the producer, as usual, couldn’t leave well enough alone. After employing one of the future giants of world cinema for a few months at a bargain rate, he gave him the boot in favor of a name writer, Lillian Hellman, whose version also was tossed aside, and, as usual, Selznick lost interest in his latest toy. Btw, the name of that odd sounding screenwriter was Ingmar Bergman.