Best Actress 1956

[bizarre]

I have not seen any of these nominees, but this was a terrific year for lead actresses. My picks:

1. Barbara Rush, Bigger Than Life
2. Diana Dors, Yield to the Night
3. Michiyo Aratama, Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District
4. Betsy Blair, Calle Mayor
5. Karuna Bannerjee, Aparajito

[Big Magilla]

IWe all (should) know that Kelly won a Tony for her role in 'The Bad Seed' on Broadway. That is the basis for my support of her. She was a stage actress more than a movie actress. Her performance is much, much more theatrical than we expect. While the movie may be campy, her performance is not. It is the brilliant performance by a woman who was new to cinema and did not quite make the full transition from stage to screen.

That's pretty funny considering that Nancy Kelly had been a film star for thirty years when she starred in The Bad Seed, having begun as a child actress in 1926 at the age of five. She did not make her Broadway debut until 1931 when she was ten.

Although she alternated between stage and screen for many years, she was probably more widely seen on TV in the 1950s. Her brother was Jack Kelly, James Garner's co-star in Maverick.

[ksrymy]

I will not be afraid to admit that I voted for Nancy Kelly. I felt that this came down between her and Bergman and Bergman's performance, while, great, was essentially thirty minutes of her acting delirious and unknowing and the rest of the time was more whining. You might wonder why I'm not saying the same thing about Kelly. We all (should) know that Kelly won a Tony for her role in 'The Bad Seed' on Broadway. That is the basis for my support of her. She was a stage actress more than a movie actress. Her performance is much, much more theatrical than we expect. While the movie may be campy, her performance is not. It is the brilliant performance by a woman who was new to cinema and did not quite make the full transition from stage to screen. It's like Olivier vs. Brando. Who's the better actor? It's impossible to say because Olivier has a much more theatrical approach whereas Brando was built for the screen.

[ITALIANO]

It takes courage to vote for Nancy Kelly in The Bad Seed, and I am a coward. It IS camp, quintessential 50s camp, despite (or even more so because of) the ridiculous softening of a play which was already ridiculous enough. Yet the movie, with all its (again typically 50s) paranoia, it's a perfect depiction of what it meant for a woman back then to discover that her child was homosexual, or communist, or anything else unAmerican. Seen this way, Kelly's grotesquely anxious performance can be watchable.

But we are talking good acting here. Which of course means we dont even have to consider Katharine Hepburn's tiresome variation on her spinster act in The Rainmaker. The others were good (Kerr better in this one than in Tea and Sympathy), but it's really between that dazzling newcomer Carroll Baker and Ingrid Bergman's comeback.

I like Baker, if only because later in her career she came here and made all kinds of weird Italian movies, from Marco Ferreri to Lenzi's cult giallos to very bad sex comedies, always with the kind of professionalism that only an American could mantain under such circumstances. I've met many who knew her personally by the way, and had only good things to say about her. Still, one cant say that the promise she showed in Baby Doll was completely fulfilled in the following years.

As others have rightly said, Bergman's best performances of this period were in the movies she made with Rossellini (and Europa 51 is one of her best performances ever). But she wasnt nominated for those, so we are left with Anastasia, which is the kind of film Rossellini must have hated. Yet it's not bad. Ok, the play is a kind of Pirandello imitation, but without Pirandello's depth and philosophy. Still it gives an actress a great role to sink her teeth into, and Bergman had the talent to do justice to it. It's pleasant to watch, reasonably effective, and I think the Academy wasnt wrong this time.



Edited By ITALIANO on 1250957049

[Mister Tee]

In keeping with the co-stars ruining films motif, I find Earl Holliman excruciating in The Rainmaker.

And a Golden Globe winner -- Best Supporting Actor of 1956 to boot!

Among those he beat was another of your favorites from this year -- Eli Wallach.

The five Academy supporting nominees that year were no bargain -- add Don Murray's perfomance as another I can't abide -- but at least they spared us those two.

Eli Wallach is probably someone alot of people would assume must have been nominated at some point but never was.

[Damien]

In keeping with the co-stars ruining films motif, I find Earl Holliman excruciating in The Rainmaker.

And a Golden Globe winner -- Best Supporting Actor of 1956 to boot!

Among those he beat was another of your favorites from this year -- Eli Wallach.



Edited By Damien on 1249597070

[Mister Tee]

The Bad Seed is too laughable to consider. Carroll Baker is good, but I, like Magilla, have all sorts of problems with Baby Doll because of the hamola double-team of Malden and Wallach. (For years I considered it a blessing no one else ever co-starred them, but then Martin Ritt put them side-by-side in Nuts)

In keeping with the co-stars ruining films motif, I find Earl Holliman excruciating in The Rainmaker. Hepburn isn't bad, but way below her Summertime standard of the year previous.

Having been weaned on the Audrey Hepburn/Fair Lady controversy, I have difficult rooting for lip-synched performances, but Kerr is awfully good despite that in King and I.

But, in the end, I think Bergman mostly deserved this. Agreed it's not one of her greatest performances -- nor are any of her wins -- but it's the most solid of this bunch for me, and more than a sentimental gesture by the Academy.

[Penelope]

Went with Bergman--she's staggeringly good in the first half of the film; Baker is a very close second.

[Eric]

In Wyman's absence, it's camp all the way. Kelly.

[Damien]

Kerr and Bergman -- two wonderful actresses being uncharacteristically dull. (If Kerr had been nominated for Tea and Sympathy instead, then there's your winner.)

Hepburn -- good but coasting.

Nancy Kelly -- unforgettable in The Bad Seed, but for all the wrong reasons. Her line readings are nutty and her hilariously wrong-headed performance, along with Eileen Heckert's how-not-to-play-a grieving-drunk and Patty McCormack's iconic wind-up mechanical work, is part of the Holy Trinity of campiest Oscar nominees ever.

The only logical choice is Carroll Baker, incredibly carnal, sexy and very funny in Baby Doll.



Edited By Damien on 1249529486

[Reza]

Voted for Bergman.

My top 5:

Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia
Deborah Kerr, Tea and Sympathy
Jane Wyman, All That Heaven Allows
Ava Gardner, Bhowani Junction
Dorothy McGuire, Friendly Persuasion

[Big Magilla]

Voted for Bergman's historic "welcome back" second Oscar.

Kerr was splendid in both The King and I and Tea and Sympathy and not bad in The Proud and Profane either. She would have been my second choice, though I agree the nomination should have been for Tea and Sympathy.

Hepburn was fine in The Rainmaker but was basically reprising her roles in The African Queen and Summertime. Kelly's grand over-the-top performance in The Bad Seed was worthy of a nomination, but not a win.

Baker I don't get. She was OK in Baby Doll, but the rest of the cast was like nails on a chalkboard. Malden and Wallach are particularly dreadful.

Most conspicuous by their absence: Jane Wyman in All That Heaven Allows, Dorothy McGuire in Friendly Persuasion and Giulietta Masina in La Strada.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1249509406

[Big Magilla]

Omissions:
Bergman in Elena and Her Men

Elena and Her Men was ineligible. It was released as Paris Does Strange Things in the U.S. the following year (1957).

[dws1982]

Kerr, as she was several times, was nominated for the wrong film. It should've been Tea and Sympathy, for which she would've gotten my vote.

As it is, Carroll Baker gets it. Love Ingrid Bergman, but her three winning performances are three of her least interesting, I believe.



Edited By dws1982 on 1249506714

[jowy_jillia]

I Pick Bergman. I can't really understand all the raves about Kerr, she was charming but not great.

Baker is second to me

Omissions:
Bergman in Elena and Her Men
Taylor in Giant
McGuire in Friendly Persuasion
Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much
Hepburn in War and Peace
Monroe in Bus Stop
Kerr and Tea & Sympathy (Like this more than The King & I)

1955
1. Katharine Hepburn - Summertime - 9 vptes
2. Eleanor Parker - Interrupted - 2 votes
3. Anna Magnani - The Rose Tattoo - 1 vote

1954
1. Judy Garland - A Star Is Born - 12 votes
2. Jane Wyman - Magnificent Obsession - 2 votes
3. Grace Kelly - The Country Girl - 1 vote

1953
1. Audrey Hepburn - Roman Holiday - 8 votes
2. Deborah Kerr - From Here to Eternity - 4 votes
3. Leslie Caron - Lili - 1 vote

1952
1. Julie Harris - The Member of the Wedding - 5 votes
2. Susan Hayward - With a Song in my Heart - 4 votes
3. Shirley Booth - Come Back, Little Sheba - 3 votes
4. Joan Crawford - Sudden Fear - 1 vote

1951
1. Vivien Leigh - A Streetcar Named Desire - 20 votes
2. Shelley Winters - A Place in the Sun - 2 votes

1950
1. Gloria Swanson - Sunset Blvd. - 13 votes
2. Bette Davis - All About Eve - 7 votes
3. Eleanor Parker - Caged - 1 vote

1949
1. Olivia de Havilland - The Heiress - 11 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 - 6 votes

1947
1. Susan Hayward - Smash Up - 4 votes.
1. Rosalind Russell - Mourning Becomes Electra - 4 votes
3. Joan Crawford - Possessed - 2 votes
3. Loretta Young - The Farmer's Daughter - 2 votes

1946
1. Celia Johnson - Brief Encounter - 12 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
1. Gene Tierny - Leave Her to Heaven - 6 votes
3. Ingrid Bergman - The Bells of St. Mary's - 3 votes

1944
1. Barbara Stanwyck - Double Indemnity - 13 votes
2. Ingrid Bergman - Gaslight - 5 votes

1943
1. Jean Arthur - The More the Merrier - 5 votes
2. Jennifer Jonies - The Song of Bernadette - 3 votes
3. Ingrid Bergman - For Whom the Bell Tolls - 2 vote
3. Joan Fontaine - The Constant Nymph - 1 vote

1942
1. Bette Davis - Now, Voyager - 7 votes
1. Greer Garson - Mrs. Miniver - 7 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 - 5 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 - 20 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 - 6 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 - 4 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 - 6 votes
2. Janet Gaynor - Seventh Heaven - 3 votes
3. Janet Gaynor - Street Angel - 1 vote

Most Wins:
Katharine Hepburn - 4
Bette Davis - 2
Vivien Leigh - 2
Barbara Stanwyck - 2

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