Audrey Totter
Audrey Totter | |
---|---|
Born | Audrey Mary Totter December 20, 1917 Joliet, Illinois, U.S. |
Died | December 12, 2013 | (aged 95)
Education | Joliet High School |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1935–1987 |
Known for | The Postman Always Rings Twice Lady in the Lake The Set-Up Medical Center |
Spouse |
Leo Fred (m. 1953–1995) |
Children | 1[1] |
Audrey Mary Totter (December 20, 1917 – December 12, 2013) was an American radio, film, and television actress and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player in the 1940s.
Early life
Audrey – some sources indicate "Audra" – Totter was born in 1917
Totter graduated from
Career
This section needs additional citations for verification. (August 2022) |
Radio
Totter began her acting career in radio in the late 1930s in Chicago, only 40 miles northeast of Joliet. She played in soap operas, including Painted Dreams, Ma Perkins, and Bright Horizon.
Film
Following success in Chicago and New York City, Totter was signed to a seven-year film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). She made her film debut in Main Street After Dark (1945) and established herself as a popular female lead in the 1940s. Due to Totter's limited skill as a singer, MGM used Harriet Lee as her voice double in the 1945 film Dangerous Partners.[6] Although she performed in various film genres, she became most widely known to movie audiences for her work in film noir.[7] Looking back, Totter stated in August 1999, "The bad girls were so much fun to play. I wouldn't have wanted to play the Coleen Gray good-girl parts."[8]
Among her successes were:
- The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) with John Garfield and Lana Turner
- Lady in the Lake (1947) with Robert Montgomery and Jayne Meadows
- The Unsuspected (1947 for Warner Bros.) with Claude Rains
- High Wall (1947) with Robert Taylor
- The Saxon Charm (1948) with Robert Montgomery, Susan Hayward, and John Payne
- Alias Nick Beal (1949) with Ray Milland
- The Set-Up (1949) with Robert Ryan
- Any Number Can Play (1949) with Clark Gable and Alexis Smith
- Tension (1950) with Richard Basehart
- The Blue Veil (1951) with Jane Wyman
- FBI Girl (1951) with Cesar Romero and George Brent
- The Sellout (1952) with Walter Pidgeon, John Hodiak, and Paula Raymond
By the early 1950s, the tough-talking "dames" she was best known for portraying were no longer fashionable, and as MGM began streamlining its roster of contract players and worked towards creating more family-themed films, Totter was released from her contract. She reportedly was dissatisfied with her MGM career and agreed to appear in Any Number Can Play only after Clark Gable intervened. After leaving MGM, she worked for
Television
In 1954, Totter appeared in the pilot episode of the later 1957–58 detective series Meet McGraw (with
Later in 1958, Totter played boarding house owner Beth Purcell in another NBC Western series, Cimarron City. The episodes were supposed to rotate among star George Montgomery as the mayor, John Smith as blacksmith/deputy sheriff Lane Temple, and Totter, but when the writers failed to feature her character, she left the series.
In 1960, she was in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Madame Mystery". From 1962 to 1963, she starred as
Totter had a continuing role from 1972 to 1976, playing Nurse Wilcox, the efficient head nurse, in the CBS television series Medical Center, with James Daly and Chad Everett. Her last acting role was as a nun, Sister Paul, in a 1987 episode ("Old Habits Die Hard") of CBS's Murder, She Wrote, with Angela Lansbury.
Personal life and death
Totter was married to Dr. Leo Fred,
In November 1952, Totter said she was a
Totter died on December 12, 2013, of a stroke, aged 95.[2] After a memorial service, her body was cremated and her ashes scattered in the Pacific.[11]
Filmography
See also
References
- ^ "Audrey Totter, 1940s film noir actress, dead at 95". Nydailynews.com. December 16, 2013. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
- ^ a b Notice of death of Audrey Totter, L.A. Times, December 14, 2013.
- ^ Most references cite 1918 as her year of birth but Intelius indicates the year was 1917, as do Ancestry.com's United States census records, which give her age in April 1930 as 12 years old, and in January 1920 (see below) as two years old
- ^ Year: 1920
Census Place: Joliet Ward 1, Will, Illinois
Roll: T625_416
Page: 2A
Enumeration District: 185
Image: 109
Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]
Provo, UT, US: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
Original data: Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
For details on the contents of the film numbers, visit the following NARA web page: NARA. Note: Enumeration Districts 819-839 are on roll 323 (Chicago City) - ^ "An Interview With Audrey Totter", Skip E. Lowe, 1989.
- ^ "Harriet Lee (Filmography)". TCM.com. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
- ^ Matt Schudel (December 15, 2013). "Actress was known as film noir femme fatale". The Washington Post. p. C8. Retrieved December 16, 2013.
- ^ Bernard Weinraub (August 23, 1999). "They're Gorgeous, Mysterious and Ready to Make a Sap Out of You". The New York Times. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
- ^ Motion Picture and Television Magazine, November 1952, page 34, Ideal Publishers
- ISBN 9781476625997. Retrieved August 24, 2017 – via Google Books.
External links
- Audrey Totter at IMDb
- Audrey Totter at Rotten Tomatoes
- Audrey Totter at AllMovie
- "Audrey Totter". GeoCities. Archived from the original on October 27, 2009.