Best Actress 1951 - Vote for the Best Actress 1951

[Reza]

Leigh all the way, and by a large margin.....followed by Hepburn. Parker and Winters are clearly supporting (although, as Magilla says, a case could be made for Winters in the lead category). Have never seen Wyman's film.

My top 5:

Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire
Katharine Hepburn, The African Queen
Ethel Barrymore, Kind Lady
Jeanne Crain, People Will Talk
Irene Dunne, The Mudlark

[rudeboy]

It's a while since I saw it but I remember her role being relatively small. It's quite late in the film before the mudlark is introduced to the Queen, and afterwards he spends much of the time with Finlay Currie's (wonderful) John Brown...

[Big Magilla]

If anything, I'd move Winters to support and replace her with either Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk, Joan Fontaine in September Affair or Irene Dunne, in The Mudlark.

Surely Irene Dunne's role in The Mudlark is even more supporting than Winters.

Surely you jest.

[rudeboy]

If anything, I'd move Winters to support and replace her with either Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk, Joan Fontaine in September Affair or Irene Dunne, in The Mudlark.

Surely Irene Dunne's role in The Mudlark is even more supporting than Winters.

[Big Magilla]

A Place in the Sun is based on Theodre Dresier's An American Tragedy which was more faithfully filmed in 1931 with Phillips Holmes as the protagonist and Sylvia Sidney as the poor girl who becomes an albatross around his neck when he falls for rich and lovely Frances Dee who is in the film for maybe ten minutes. Sidney, even though she exits about two thrids of the way through, is clearly the female lead in one of her best performances.

How closely the remake started out to be faithful to the novel and how much it veered off course to build up Elizabeth Taylor's part I don't know, but Winters' role in the finished product could conceivably be nominated in either category. I think it's a good performance. She makes you despise her and feel sorry for her at the same time and then feel guilty about it, or at lest that's the way I remember it - I haven't actually watched it in quite a while.

This film was made in late 1949 and ready for release in 1950 but held up by Paramount so as not to compete with Sunset Boulevard at the Oscars. An even bigger victim of downplaying a character was Anne Revere as Montgomery Clift's mother. Her part was substantially bigger than the one scene phone call she has in the finished product. It was cut due to her blacklisting.

[The Original BJ]

Well, I guess I'll be the lone defender of Shelley Winters. (Not that I would even consider voting for her -- like everyone, I think Vivien Leigh is pretty much a miracle here.) But, I think Winters is excellent in A Place in the Sun. For me, she captured EXACTLY the needy, wear-my-problems-on-my-sleeve attitude that DOES draw guys like George to women like her. Winters dared to be annoying and unlikable, but her Alice is heartbreakingly helpless enough that it makes sense to me why George would still do his best to take care of her...until he had to take care of her.

That being said, I would have loved to have seen what Gloria Grahame would have done with the role.

And, dws, you're right -- in today's era, I can't imagine Winters being anywhere but supporting.

[dws1982]

Shelley Winters' casting utterly undoes the balance of A Place in the Sun. Shelley Winters and poverty, or Elizabeth Taylor and enormous wealth -- how does one choose?

Yeah--I think it would've been more interesting if Taylor and Winters had switched roles. IMDb says that Audrey Totter and Gloria Grahame were both sought for the Winters role, but the owners of their souls (MGM and Howard Hughes, respectively) refused to loan them out. Both would certainly have been better cast than Winters. It's been years since I've seen A Place in the Sun (and hated it--especially those nonstop dissolves), so I may be misremembering, but isn't the Winters role a fairly small one, at least by modern standards of this category?

Voted for Leigh.

[Mister Tee]

The Blue Veil remains one of the most elusive nominees for me. Parker is, as many are saying, excellent, but I was startled by how small the role was.

Shelley Winters' casting utterly undoes the balance of A Place in the Sun. Shelley Winters and poverty, or Elizabeth Taylor and enormous wealth -- how does one choose?

The other two are at the top of their form, but Leigh of course has one of the greatest roles in the American canon, and she wins the race. In fact, I view Leigh as a gimme winner in both her races.

[Reza]

Parker is superb in her small role in Detective Story.

Was this also a case of a star not being relegated to the supporting category?

[Damien]

I've never seen The Blue Veil. Parker is superb in her small role in Detective Story. Hepburn gives one of her very best performances in The African Queen, delightfully holding her own with Bogart in her first middle-aged spinster role, a type that would become her forte throughout the decade. As for Shelley Winters, Sabin said it all. Die already you hideous, whiny, grasping thing! And that dreary slog of a movie is as much of a drag as Winters is.

Vivien Leigh is simply extraordinary, capturing all of Blanche's self-delusional contradictions, and her classical theatricality plays off Brando's Method theatricality brilliantly.

My own Top 5:
1. Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire
2. Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen
3. Peggy Dow in Bright Victory
4. Ann Blyth in Thunder On The Hill
5. Eleanor Parker in Detective Story



Edited By Damien on 1248907401

[Sabin]

Leigh.

Hepburn is wonderful. I shouldn't desperately want to see Winters dead at the bottom of the lake but I do. Stevens can't control her need to be loved and it ends up being grossly counterproductive.

[Big Magilla]

Not much to complain about here. Hepburn tops herself but Leigh tops everyone including Hepburn.

Wyman is at her peak in The Blue Veil and Parker's role while short, is effective. If anything, I'd move Winters to support and replace her with either Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk, Joan Fontaine in September Affair or Irene Dunne, in The Mudlark.

[jowy_jillia]

Leigh with her phenomenal Blanche DuBois gets my vote

In my ballot I would want to include Taylor in "A Place in the Sun" giving a mature and sparkling screen presence.

1950
1. Gloria Swanson - Sunset Blvd. - 12 votes
2. Bette Davis - All About Eve - 7 votes
3. Eleanor Parker - Caged - 1 vote

1949
1. Olivia de Havilland - The Heiress - 9 votes
2. Deborah Kerr - Edward My Son - 2 votes
3. Loretta Young - Come to the Stable - 1 vote

1948
1. Jane Wyman - Johnny Belinda - 8 votes
2. Olivia de Havilland - The Snake Pit - 5 votes

1947
1. Susan Hayward - Smash Up - 3 votes
1. Rosalind Russell - Mourning Becomes Electra - 3 votes
3. Joan Crawford - Possessed - 2 votes
3. Loretta Young - The Farmer's Daughter - 2 votes

1946
1. Celia Johnson - Brief Encounter - 10 votes
2. Olivia de Havilland - To Each His Own - 2 votes
2. Jennifer Jones - Duel in the Sun - 2 votes
4. Jane Wyman - The Yearling - 1 vote

1945
1. Joan Crawford - Mildred Pierce - 6 votes
2. Gene Tierny - Leave Her to Heaven - 5 votes
3. Ingrid Bergman - The Bells of St. Mary's - 3 votes

1944
1. Barbara Stanwyck - Double Indemnity - 13 votes
2. Ingrid Bergman - Gaslight - 4 votes

1943
1. Jean Arthur - The More the Merrier - 4 votes
2. Jennifer Jonies - The Song of Bernadette - 3 votes
3. Ingrid Bergman - For Whom the Bell Tolls - 1 vote
3. Joan Fontaine - The Constant Nymph - 1 vote

1942
1. Bette Davis - Now, Voyager - 6 votes
1. Greer Garson - Mrs. Miniver - 6 votes
3. Katharine Hepburn - Woman of the Year - 1 vote

1941
1. Barbara Stanwyck - Ball of Fire - 8 votes
2. Bette Davis - The Little Foxes - 4 votes

1940
1. Katharine Hepburn - The Philadelphia Story - 9 votes
2. Joan Fontaine - Rebecca - 6 votes
3. Bette Davis - The Letter - 3 votes

1939
1. Vivien Leigh - Gone With the Wind - 18 votes
2. Greta Garbo - Ninotchka - 2 votes

1938
1. Bette Davis - Jezebel - 4 votes
1. Wendy Hiller - Pygmalion - 4 votes
3. Margaret Sullavan - Three Comrades - 3 votes
4. Norma Shearer - Marie Antoinette - 1 vote

1937
1. Irene Dunne - The Awful Truth - 7 votes
2. Greta Garbo - Camille - 6 votes
3. Janet Gaynor - A Star is Born - 1 vote
3. Luise Rainer - The Good Earth - 1 vote
3. Barbara Stanwyck - Stella Dallas - 1 vote

1936
1. Carole Lombard - My Man Godfrey - 10 votes
2. Irene Dunne - Theodora Goes Wild - 1 vote
2. Luise Rainer - The Great Ziegfeld - 1 vote

1935
1. Katharine Hepburn - Alice Adams - 7 votes
2. Claudette Colbert - Private Worlds - 2 votes
2. Bette Davis - Dangerous - 2 votes

1934
1. Claudette Colbert - It Happened One Night - 7 votes
2. Bette Davis - Of Human Bondage - 1 vote

1932/33
1. Katharine Hepburn - Morning Glory - 5 votes
2. May Robson - Lady for a Day - 2 votes

1931/32
1. Marie Dressler - Emma - 6 votes

1930/31
1. Marlene Dietrich - Morocco - 8 votes
2. Marie Dressler - Min and Bill - 1 vote
2. Norma Shearer - A Free Soul - 1 vote

1929/30
1. Greta Garbo - Anna Christie - 3 votes
2. Ruth Chatterton - Sarah and Son - 1 vote
2. Greta Garbo - Romance - 1 vote
2. Norma Shearer - The Divorcee - 1 vote

1928/29
1. Ruth Chatterton - Madame X - 4 votes
2. Jeanne Eagels - The Letter - 1 vote

1927/28
1. Janet Gaynor - Sunrise - 5 votes
2. Janet Gaynor - Seventh Heaven - 3 votes
3. Janet Gaynor - Street Angel - 1 vote

Most Wins:
Katharine Hepburn - 3
Bette Davis - 2
Barbara Stanwyck - 2

Most Runner-Ups:
Bette Davis - 4
Greta Garbo - 2
Olivia de Havilland - 2
Jennifer Jones - 2

Actual Winners who didn't recieve any vote
28/29. Mary Pickford - Coquette
31/32. Helen Hayes - The Sin of Madelon Claudet
40. Ginger Rogers - Kitty Foyle
50. Judy Holliday - Born Yesterday