Teresa Wright

Wright received three Emmy Award nominations for her performances in the original Playhouse 90 television version of The Miracle Worker (1957), in the NBC Sunday Showcase feature The Margaret Bourke-White Story (1959), and in the CBS drama series Dolphin Cove (1989).

She earned the acclaim of top film directors, including William Wyler, who called her the most promising actress he had directed,[1] and Alfred Hitchcock, who admired her thorough preparation and quiet professionalism.

[3][5] Following her high school graduation in 1938, she went to New York, shortened her name to "Teresa Wright", and was hired as understudy to Dorothy McGuire and Martha Scott for the role of Emily in Thornton Wilder's stage production of Our Town at Henry Miller's Theatre.

Goldwyn would later recall his first encounter with her backstage: Miss Wright was seated at her dressing table, and looked for all the world like a little girl experimenting with her mother's cosmetics.

Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: In shorts, playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal; attired in firecrackers and holding skyrockets for the Fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving; wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf; assuming an athletic stance while pretending to hit something with a bow and arrow.

The following year, she was nominated again, this time for Best Actress for The Pride of the Yankees, in which she played opposite Gary Cooper as the wife of Lou Gehrig.

[6] In 1946, Wright delivered another notable performance in William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives, an award-winning film about the adjustments of servicemen returning home after World War II.

[10]Four years later, she would appear in another story of war veterans, Fred Zinnemann's The Men (1950), which starred Marlon Brando in his film debut.

[10] In her written response, Wright denied Goldwyn's charges and expressed no regret over losing her $5,000 per week contract.

The types of contracts standardized in the motion picture industry between players and producers are archaic in form and absurd in concept.

[10][11]Years later, in an interview with The New York Post, Wright recalled: "I was going to be Joan of Arc, and all I proved was that I was an actress who would work for less money."

[5] In the 1950s, Wright appeared in several unsuccessful films, including The Capture (1950), Something to Live For (1952), California Conquest (1952), The Steel Trap (1952), Count the Hours (1953), The Actress (1953) and Track of the Cat (1954), opposite Robert Mitchum again.

She received Emmy Award nominations for her performances in the Playhouse 90 original television version of The Miracle Worker (1957) and in the Breck Sunday Showcase feature The Margaret Bourke-White Story (1960).

[citation needed] In 1955 she played Doris Walker in The 20th Century-Fox Hour remake of the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street, opposite MacDonald Carey and Thomas Mitchell.

She appeared on The Love Boat S6 E11 "A Christmas Presence" as Sister Regina, who foils a con man's scheme to smuggle stolen gold molded as a painted creche scene.

In her last decade, Wright lived quietly in her New England home in the town of Bridgewater, Connecticut, in Litchfield County, appearing occasionally at film festivals and forums and at events associated with the New York Yankees.

In 1996, she reminisced about Alfred Hitchcock at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and in 2003, she appeared on the Academy Awards show in a segment honoring previous Oscar-winners.

Wright and Lew Ayres in The Capture (1950)