Katina Paxinou ~ Supporting Actress

Born in Piraeus, Greece. Katina Paxinou was a formidable tragedienne and character player of the international stage and screen. She graduated a Gold Medalist from the Geneva Conservatoire and started out as an opera singer. She switched to acting in 1929 and shortly after joined the Greek National Theater. When WW II broke out, she was performing in London and, unable to return to Greece, came to the United States, making her Broadway debut in Hedda Gabler in 1942. The following year, she gained international fame and an Oscar® as best supporting actress for her powerful portrayal of Pilar in Hollywood’s FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS (1943). She appeared in several other Hollywood productions (HOSTAGES, 1943; CONFIDENTIAL AGENT, 1945, UNCLE SILAS and MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, both 1947; PRINCE OF FOXES, 1949) but later returned to Athens, where she and her husband, Alexis Minotis, established the Royal Theater of Athens, which became one of the most celebrated in Europe.

Charles Coburn ~ Supporting Actor

He was a Southern gentleman born Charles Douville Coburn in Savannah, Georgia on June 17, 1877. He worked his way up from program boy to manager in a local theatre and eventually switched to acting himself. In 1901 he made his Broadway debut and in later years became a film star. He had a pudgy, jolly face, wore a monocle better than anyone else and had a sort of blustery, but smooth voice. He played sophisticated gents, businessmen and grandfatherly types mostly.He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The More the Merrier in 1943. He was also nominated for The Devil and Miss Jones in 1941 and The Green Years in 1946. In the 1940s, Coburn served as vice-president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a right-wing group opposed to Communists in Hollywood. His leadership of the Hollywood blacklist of anyone with any connection to Communism, supported by such luminaries as John Wayne, Hedda Hopper, Adolphe Menjou, Ward Bond, Robert Taylor, Ronald Reagan and Ginger Rogers, to name a few, led to a myriad of talented actors, writers and directors being driven out of Hollywood and deprived of their livelihood.

Mrs. Miniver Best Picture 1942

A movie doesn’t win seven Oscars for nothing. A glowing Greer Garson commands the screen as Mrs. Kay Miniver, a middle-class British housewife whose strength holds her family together as World War II literally hits their home. Walter Pidgeon, as her architect husband Clem, seems to be the prototype for future TV dads in this affecting portrait of love — familial and romantic — during war. But the relationship between Mrs. Miniver’s college-age son (Richard Ney) and the upper-crust Carol (Teresa Wright) is filled with inherent drama — as the war speeds up their young love, it also has the potential to doom it. The William Wyler film is filled with colorful characters, snappy dialogue, and sensational plot twists. Although you spend much of the movie dreading that one of the Minivers will become a casualty of war, when it finally happens, it’s not what you anticipated. Exactly what you’d expect from a legendary film that lives up to its billing. Supporting cast includes Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen, Henry Travers, Henry Wilcoxon, Christopher Severn and Clare Sandars (as the littlest Minivers) and Helmut Dantine (as a downed German flier). In 1943, Garson married Richard Ney, eleven years her junior, who plays her son Vin in Mrs. Miniver; the marriage lasted until 1947.

Yankee Doodle Dandy

The American gangster film, and the output of Warner Bros. in its most influential decade, would be unimaginable without the contributions of James Cagney. One of talking pictures’ first generation of actors, Cagney forever romanticized the figures of the criminal and the con artist with his jittery physical dynamism and breakneck staccato vocal patterns.

I first saw James Cagney in film, in Yankee Doodle Dandy and the memories from that first glimpse were unforgettable. I wanted to be James Cagney. His portrayal of George M. Cohan was amazing to say the least.

Ending three decades on the screen, Cagney retired to his farm in Stanfordville, New York (some 77 miles/124 km. north of his New York City birthplace), after starring in Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (1961). Emerged from retirement to star in the 1981 screen adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime (1981), in which he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 30’s, the actor ‘Pat O’Brien’, and which was his last theatrical film. (Ironically – or fittingly, if one prefers – it was O’Brien’s last film as well.) Cagney’s final performance came in the title role of the made-for-TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (1984) (TV), in which he played opposite Art Carney. He died March 30, 1986 of a heart attack.

Van Heflin ~ Supporting Actor

Born Emmett Evan Heflin Jr. in Walters, OK. A restless youth, he frequently interrupted his university studies for overseas voyages as a merchant seaman and for occasional stage appearances. He made his first appearance on Broadway in 1928. Katharine Hepburn saw him in End of Summer, opposite Ina Claire, and persuaded RKO to cast him as her lover in the film A WOMAN REBELS (1936). In 1939 he won acclaim as her stage co-star in Broadway’s The Philadelphia Story. Meanwhile, he continued asserting himself in films as a rugged second lead with a boyish countenance and won the best supporting actor Academy Award for his performance as an alcoholic intellectual Jeff Hartnett in JOHNNY EAGER (1941).

He was subsequently promoted to leading man and turned in many fine performances as the star of both dramas and action films, memorably in SHANE (1953) and PATTERNS (1956). He also made some notable stage appearances, including A View From the Bridge and A Case of Libel. Not romantically handsome in the Hollywood mold, he played intelligent, determined, often complex heroes, and in the 1960s character parts. His last role was that of a mad bomber in AIRPORT (1970). His second wife (1942-67) was a former bit player in movies, Frances Neal. He died of a heart attack while swimming in the pool of the Hollywood apartment building in which he lived. In accordance with his will his remains were cremated and scattered over the Pacific Ocean, where he loved to sail and fish.

Teresa Wright ~ Supporting Actress

Born Muriel Teresa Wright in New York City. Quiet, sweetly compelling stage actress who appeared in a number of first-rate movies of the 1940s and 50s, notably THE LITTLE FOXES (1941) (her debut), MRS. MINIVER (1942), which earned her a best supporting actress Oscar as Greer Garson’s daughter-in-law, she was also nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress for The Pride of the Yankees, in which she played opposite Gary Cooper as the wife of Lou Gehrig; No actor has ever duplicated, or is likely to duplicate, her feat of receiving an Oscar nomination for each of their first three films. She also starred in SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943), THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946) and THE MEN (1950), opposite a debuting Marlon Brando.

Wright retired from the screen at the end of the decade but returned in 1969 to play occasional character parts. She resumed her stage career in the early 1960s and made sporadic TV appearances. Married to screenwriter Niven Busch from 1942 to 1952 and subsequently married to, divorced from and re-married to playwright Robert Anderson.

Greer Garson ~ Mrs. Miniver

Greer Garson was born in London, England, on September 29, 1904. Her childhood was a normal if not non-descript life. Greer showed no early signs of interest in becoming an actress. She was educated at the University of London with the intentions of becoming a teacher. Instead she opted to work with an advertising agency. During this time she appeared in local theatrical productions gaining a reputation as an extremely talented actress. She was discovered by Louis B. Mayer while he was on a visit to London looking for new talent. Greer was signed to a contract with MGM and appeared in her first American film in 1939. The movie in question was GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS (1939) which won rave reviews and garnered her a nomination as best actress, the first of seven nominations. Already she was a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. The following year would see Greer in the highly acclaimed PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1940) as Elizabeth Bennet. 1941 saw her get a second nomination for her role as Edna Gladney in BLOSSOMS IN THE DUST (1941). Garson won her first Academy Award for MRS. MINIVER (1942), a role which she would forever be known by.

How Green Was My Valley

John Ford’s beautiful, heartfelt drama about a close-knit family of Welsh coal miners is one of the greatest films of Hollywood’s golden age — a gentle masterpiece based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn. The film focuses its eventful story on 10-year-old Huw (Roddy McDowall), youngest of seven children to Mr. and Mrs. Morgan (Donald Crisp, Sarah Allgood), a hardy couple who’ve seen the best and worst of times in their South Wales mining town. They’re facing one of the worst times as Mr. Morgan refuses to join a miners union whose members have begun a long-term strike. Family tensions grow and Huw must learn many of life’s harsher lessons under the tutelage of the local preacher (Walter Pigeon), who has fallen in love with Huw’s sister (Maureen O’Hara). As various crises are confronted and devastating losses endured, How Green Was My Valley unfolds as a rich, moving portrait of family strength and integrity. It’s also a nod to a simpler, more innocent time — and to the preciousness of memory and the inevitable passage from youth to adulthood. An all-time classic, not to be missed.

The Great Gary Cooper

The son of a Montana state supreme court justice, he received his elementary schooling in England, later attending Wesleyan College, an agricultural school in Montana, and Grinnell College in Iowa. After graduation, he worked briefly as a guide at Yellowstone National Park and began submitting political cartoons to his hometown newspaper, the Helena Independent. In 1924, Cooper set out for California, hoping to become a cartoonist for a Los Angeles newspaper. Instead he found himself a door-to-door salesman for a photographer and space salesman for theater curtain advertising. In 1925 he was introduced by friends to Hollywood casting directors and began playing cowboy extras in Westerns. During 1925 and early 1926 he appeared briefly in many films, including THE THUNDERING HERD, WILD HORSE MESA, THE VANISHING AMERICAN, THE EAGLE, and THE ENCHANTED HILL. He also played heavies in several two-reelers. His big break came in 1926, when he was cast as a last-minute replacement for the second lead in Goldwyn’s THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH (1926), starring Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky.
The film was a big box-office hit and it started Cooper on his way to becoming one of Hollywood’s all-time great stars. Tall, handsome, and laconic, with a shy smile and a hesitant delivery, he had an immediate appeal to both male and female audiences and steadily moved to the top. In the eyes of millions the world over he came to personify the strong, silent American, a man of action and few words. At first taken lightly by the critics, he received more press coverage for his romantic escapades (Clara Bow, Lupe Velez, Evelyn Brent, etc.) than for his acting in films. But he soon settled down, married socialite Veronica Balfe, who had briefly appeared in films as Sandra Shaw, and gradually developed a natural aptitude for screen acting. By the mid-30s he was generally accepted as a capable performer.
His physique and nonchalant manner had been effective from the start in romantic and adventure films. Now his slightly awkward mannerisms and delayed reactions also proved to be perfect assets for screen comedy, under the guidance of such directors as Lubitsch and Capra. But above all, he remained most closely identified with his roles as a man of the American West. In 1942 he won the best actor Academy Award, as well as the New York Film Critics Award, for SERGEANT YORK (1941).

Joan Fontaine, Olivia’s Sister

Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in Tokyo to British parents. In the US from childhood, she trailed far behind her sister Olivia de Havilland in her early career. As Joan Barfield, she appeared with various West Coast stage companies and in 1935 made her screen debut under that name in a minor role, supporting Joan Crawford in MGM’s NO MORE LADIES. She then returned to the stage and it wasn’t until 1937 that she began appearing regularly in films, mostly RKO B pictures, with the exception of A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS, in which she partnered with Fred Astaire, and GUNGA DIN, in which she was Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.’s love interest. It was not until the early 40s that her career took off, thanks to leads in two Hitchcock films. She was nominated for an Oscar for REBECCA (1940), and THE CONSTANT NYMPH (1943), and won the Academy Award, as well as the New York Film Critics Award, for her performance in SUSPICION (1941).
Fontaine subsequently starred in numerous films, at first as innocent, refined heroines and later as sophisticated, sometimes bitchy and scheming, worldly women. In the 40s and 50s she had many real or imagined well-publicized feuds with sister Olivia. The first three of her four husbands were actor Brian Aherne (1939-45), producer William Dozier (1946-51), and producer-screenwriter Collier Young (1952-61). A highly accomplished woman, she is a licensed pilot, champion balloonist, prize-winning tuna fisherman, and an expert golfer, as well as a licensed interior decorator and a Cordon Bleu cook.