1948-1957 Best Actress Winners

[CalWilliam]

I could very easily vote for Jane Wyman, Olivia de Havilland, Judy Holliday (she's wonderful and very underrated, no matter her competition), Vivien Leigh or Ingrid Bergman. Shirley Booth is clearly the weakest. But both mind and heart tell me it's Audrey all the way, for her unique breakthrough performance in Roman Holiday. Few actresses have won for being this unaffected. Every expression on her face counts.

[Big Magilla]

I voted for Vivien Leigh for a performance that still runs chills down my spine. Lots of actresses have played Blanche DuBois since Leigh, but none have quite achieved her greatness in the role.

Jane Wyman is a close second for her riveting performance as Belinda, the mother of child of rape victim Johnny in Johnny Belinda, a film that was ahead of its time and remains one for all time.

Olivia de Havilland wearily going up those stairs at the end of The Heiress after William Wyler make her do it 37 times until she was ready to drop from exhaustion gets the endurance award.

Audrey Hepburn gets the greatest overnight star out of seemingly nowhere award for Roman Holiday even though her greatest performances in The Nun's Story and Breakfast at Tiffany's were yet to come.

Ingrid Bergman gets the comeback of the decade award for Anastasia with only Deborah Kerr in The King and I, for which she was nominated, and Tea and sympathy, for which she wasn't, giving her any competition.

Those were the five I heartily agreed with.

Judy Holliday's win over Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson for playing a not-so-dumb blonde in Born Yesterday was sheer awards heresy.

Shirley Booth's pathetic housewife moping around in her bathrobe in Come Back, Little Sheba is one of the most off-putting award-winning performances of all time. Susan Hayward should have won that one for her sublime miming of Jane Froman in With a Song in My Heart.

Grace Kelly was quite good in The Country Girl. Despite what her detractors have said, her performance was a lot more than the dowdy sweater and glasses that they used to deglamorize her natural beauty. Still, Judy Garland at her career high in A Star Is Born should have won that one hands down.

Anna Magnani was a great actress but her sappy widow in The Rose Tattoo was not one of her great performances. As I've said many times, I much preferred Katharine Hepburn as an American in Italy in Summertime to Magnani's Italian in America.

Joanne Woodward was good, as she always was, as the repressed housewife in The Three Faces of Eve but the undernourished screenplay and production values undermined her performance throughout. Deborah Kerr on her fourth nomination for Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison should have won, although the nomination that year might have just as easily been for An Affair to Remember.

[Reza]

It's between Vivien and Audrey for me, with Wyman a distant third. I voted for Audrey because it comes off on screen as a totally natural performance unlike Vivien's which is clearly a "performance", excellent as it may be.

Also giving "performances" and working much too "hard" for their money are de Havilland, Booth, Bergman and Woodward. Usually an over-the-top Magnani is heaven sent. Not in the case of The Rose Tattoo.

Davis or Swanson over the Holliday win. And Garland waaaay over the Kelly win.

[dws1982]

Probably Leigh, although Wyman is very close to her in my mind, and I might be tempted to vote for her because her performance doesn't really get talked about the way a lot of Best Actress winning performances do. The rest of these, to me, are mostly really good actresses who I like better in other things, and aren't among the best of their year.

[gunnar]

Audrey Hepburn was the easy choice for me, though perhaps I'm a bit biased. Roman Holiday is one of my all time favorite movies and I loved Hepburn's performance in it.

[Big Magilla]

Only three of these races - 1948, 1954, and 1957 - were close, and only one - 1950 elicited a surprise winner. My take is that five of the ten resulted in the correct result while the other five ignored more impressive work. More on that later.

What do you think?