Best Actress 1942: Teresa Wright in "The Pride of the Yankees"

In 1943, the Academy honored two women who both reached the peak of their careers with their co-starring and acclaimed performances in the World War II drama Mrs. Miniver. Greer Garson won the Best Actress statuette for her role as the noble and strong title character while Teresa Wright received the award as Best Supporting Actress for her role as Carol, Mrs. Miniver’s charming, lovely and ill-fated daughter-in-law. These two wins not only reflected the popularity of Mrs. Miniver, which is one those Best Picture winners that managed not only to be both a critical and a financial success but also became a phenomena around the world, but also the popularity of these two actresses themselves who, during the first half of the decade, were among the brightest stars in Hollywood, enjoying a high level of success after having established themselves on the big screen quite effortlessly. Greer Garson received an Oscar nomination for her first film performance in Goodbye, Mr. Chips and later tied Bette Davis for the record for most consecutive acting nominations ever. Two years after Greer Garson, it was Teresa Wright who joined the club of performers who won Oscar nominations for their film debut. After Martha Scott had left the Broadway production of Our Town to play the role of Emily Webster in the 1940 movie version (and also winning an Oscar nomination for her film debut), Teresa Wright took over the part before she, too, decided to try her luck on the big screen. And she also entered the movie business very first-class, appearing as Bette Davis’s innocent daughter in William Wyler’s The Little Foxes and one year later she became the second person ever to receive two acting nominations in one year – as Best Supporting Actress for Mrs. Miniver and as Best Actress for her role as Lou Gehrig’s supportive wife in The Pride of the Yankees. And even more impressive than her three acting nominations in two years is the fact that Teresa Wright received these three nominations for her first three movie appearances – a record that is unlikely to ever be broken. So, Teresa Wright clearly had no problem to establish herself as an accomplished screen actress right away and 1942 was Teresa Wright’s year just as much as it was Greer Garson’s year and it was only fitting that these two actresses co-starred in the year’s most popular and acclaimed movie, reaching the highpoints of their careers and winning Oscars for portraying women whose lives and relationships are affected by the Blitz during World War II. But beyond their effortless entrance into Hollywood and the simultaneous highlights of their work, Teresa Wright and Greer Garson also faced a similar fate later in their careers – that of slowly falling into oblivion. Greer Garson was a guarantor for healthy box office and Academy recognition year after year after year but she did not manage to maintain her popularity and critical acclaim like the other three women whom she beat for the gold in 1943, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Rosalind Russell. And after The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver and The Pride of the Yankees, Teresa Wright also had to learn that Oscar nominations don’t come for every performance and she was dropped by the Academy just as quickly as its members had embraced her initially. She kept on doing high-profile work, playing the leading role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt and later had another prominent supporting role in the Best Picture winner The Best Years of our Lives. During the second half of the 40s, Teresa Wright’s popularity began to decrease but she continued to work more frequently on the stage and on television where she was the first actress to bring the character of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker to live. In this aspect, Teresa Wright actually managed to exceed Greer Garson – both actresses might not be truly remembered anymore but a resume that includes The Little Foxes, Shadow of a Doubt and The Best Years of our Lives is nothing to look down at and ultimately surpasses a resume that includes Blossoms in the Dust, Madame Curie, Mrs. Parkington or Valley of Decision. So, there has been a lot of talk about Teresa Wright’s career so far – but what about the performance that gained her the only Best Actress nomination of her career?




Actually, Teresa Wright’s work in The Pride of the Yankees poses the question if she would ever have received a leading nomination during her career if she had not starred in two successful and popular movies during the same year and it’s rather likely that, if Mrs. Miniver or The Pride of the Yankees had been released one year later, she would have become a perennial nominee in the Supporting category. This already indicates that her performance in The Pride of the Yankees is another one of those ‘debatable cases’ – a nominee in the leading category for what seems to be a rather supporting role. And yes, the facts are there – in the role of Lou Gehrig’s devoted wife Eleanor, Teresa Wright does not enter the movie until about 40 minutes after it started and she never becomes any center of attention during the following running time. The Pride of the Yankees is always a movie about Lou Gehrig, his life, his profession, his dreams and ultimately his illness. His wife is only one part of his life, just like his parents, just like his friends and just like his teammates but probably even of less importance than his career as a professional baseball player. But The Pride of the Yankees offered something to Teresa Wright that a lot of her other movies didn’t give her – the central female character. Eleanor might be of secondary importance in The Pride of the Yankees but she is still its most important female presence. The part’s weight and influence does not differ too much from her two other Oscar-nominated performances but her supporting status in The Little Foxes and Mrs. Miniver is easier to determine since both movies circle around a central female character. But with no Bette Davis or Greer Garson around, Teresa Wright alone held the position as the most noteworthy female presence in the male-dominated structure of The Pride of the Yankees and this way could create a certain illusion that Eleanor might be a much more essential part of the story than she actually is. In this sense, a nomination as leading actress does makes some sense but even without another important female presence, the script of The Pride of the Yankees is still working against Teresa Wright as it never tries to hide the fact that there is only one aspect it wants to give its attentions to – Lou Gehrig and the central performance by Gary Cooper.

But what did the script want to do with Eleanor? The answer to this question is unfortunately: nothing. Eleanor is never written as an independent human being but is always another vessel created to admire and respect Lou Gehrig’s simple nature, his honesty, his determination and his humbleness, a perfect wife for the perfect marriage of a perfect American hero. In this aspect, Teresa Wright’s performance succeeded – because she never tries to shift any importance to Eleanor, she is completely aware of the structure of the movie and how her character only exists in relation to Lou Gehrig and she also accepts the task of becoming his perfect female equivalent as Eleanor, like Lou, is a symbol of kindness, innocence, devotion, modesty and love, a simple yet unique person that stands for everything The Pride of the Yankees wants to portray. For Teresa Wright, this was actually not a challenging task – charm and grace always came to her very quickly and few other performers were able to be so instantly likeable, combining an idea of traditional womanhood with a sentimentality of also being a best friend. But while she filled the one-dimensionality of Eleanor with an appealing personality, the role never allowed her to go beyond this often empty sweetness and fill Eleanor with a life or a character of her own – something that she was able to do in her career if the script laid down a clear path for her on how to construct this inner depth and personality. Her sweet-natured innocence, charm, grace and lovely spontaneity was always lovely to look at and she always appeared comfortable and relaxed in her characters but Teresa Wright often appeared too one-dimensional in her approaches to her roles – her work is lovely and captivating but also inoffensive and sometimes downright unimaginative even if Teresa Wright’s charm and poise often covered a certain emptiness in both her characters and her acting. Additonally she was able to craft a certain sadness or activity in her characters if the writing used her screen personality in a way that supported her acting style. Because of this, her work in The Little Foxes and especially Mrs. Miniver is much more exciting, accomplished and noteworthy than The Pride of the Yankees – because both of her characters went through an important change in their lives and were allowed to develop and grow as the story went on. Her Alexandra slowly distanced herself from her own mother, recognizing her dangerous and scrupulous character and Carol allowed her to take an active part in the relationship with Vin and also offered her the possibility to become a symbol for the suffering ‘war bride’, the young woman who married the love of her life before he had to go and fight for his country. In this role, she was able to clearly demonstrate how her feelings for Vin changed during the first half of the story and how her sweet and charming poise later changed not only him, too, but also formed and shaped their whole relationship. Here, the screenplay gave her a part that was not only suited for her personality but also actually improved this personality as it enabled her to go beyond her own surface and find more depth and dimensions in the character she was playing. As mentioned above, The Pride of the Yankees unfortunately offered her less and didn’t ask her to go beyond her charming personality but actively rested on this personality for the sake of letting Eleanor appear as innocent, harmless, devoted but ultimately flat as possible. All of this already indicates that Teresa Wright’s tasks in The Pride of the Yankees circled less around the question what she had to do but rather how she did little that was asked of her. But since the role so completely depended on what she did best – being charming and lovely without feeling forced – it must also be said that Teresa Wright’s performance, as limited as it might be, still succeeded inside those limits.




This is mostly visible during her first scene in which Teresa Wright lets the relationship between Eleanor and Lou start on rocky grounds while crafting an immediately captivating character. When Lou slips and falls down while he enters the playing field during a baseball game, Eleanor, who is among the viewers, decides to have a little fun and calls him ‘Tanglefoot’, a joke that angers Lou and leads to mockery from the audience, much more than Eleanor obviously expected. It could have been an unlikable entrance but Teresa Wright’s charm and immediate gentleness helped to make her character strangely approachable. In this one moment, Eleanor suddenly added a much-needed gentle and appealing quality that the movie has missed so far – with the way Eleanor sends Lou a little, triumphant look or sees the whole situation with a healthy sense of humor, Teresa Wright demonstrates that hers could have been a wonderfully captivating and interesting character if the movie had shown any true interest in her. In these first scenes, Teresa Wright lets Eleanor appear like an independent and unconventional creation, a woman that would deserve to let the audience get to know her better and be given a chance to fully develop and become her own person. Never has Teresa Wright ever used her own personality better to portray thoughtfulness beyond what the script has given her, an absolutely delightful presentation of a an unknown woman who gets familiar very quickly. It would have been a wonderful experience if both Teresa Wright and the script had continued to give such opportunities to Eleanor, may they be small or grand. But this first impression of a fascinating character is unfortunately never allowed to turn into reality – when Eleanor later meets Lou again, Teresa Wright finds one last moment of anger, after having been tripped up by Lou as a revenge for her little joke, before all life from Eleanor suddenly seems to escape her as Teresa Wright loses all of her independence and fascination for the sake of her charm and sweetness – and the fairytale romance can begin. As mentioned, Teresa Wright’s charm and personality do a lot of work for her and help her to make Eleanor much more noticeable then she would have been otherwise – but it does not change the fact that her performance from this moment on is reduced to a variety of smiles and devoted looks at her husband without any life of her own. And besides having almost nothing to do except become a symbol of female kindness and devotion, Teresa Wright also constantly gets pushed into the background since Eleanor, as discussed before, is only one part of Lou Gehrig’s life and therefore only one aspect that is circling around Gary Cooper’s central performance. So, Teresa Wright never fails to do what she has to do and her personal charm and grace help her to constantly add a bright light whenever she appears on the screen, but the script is constantly working against her since it makes it both impossible and unnecessary to find any depth in her character. As mentioned above, The Little Foxes and Mrs. Miniver allowed her characters to slowly and gradually go through an important change in their lives, enabling Teresa Wright to display her talent for subtly communicating an inner shift of different emotions. The Pride of the Yankees was neither looking for any complexity nor for any true development. Lou Gehrig is constantly presented as a hard-working, good-hearted, honest and simple man who makes his way to the top but never changes his nature – he always remains the same loving, kind and gentle role-model he was at the beginning. And Eleanor is the perfect addition to this perfect life, the perfect American woman who does her best to turn their relationship into a true storybook-marriage. And so, Teresa Wright had basically nowhere to go with her role – everything is already as perfect as it is. Lou is perfect, Eleanor is perfect and their marriage is perfect. Tension between Lou and Eleanor never arises once they discover their love for each other and the biggest problems that Eleanor has to face during most of the running time of The Pride of the Yankees is when her mother-in-law decides on different wallpaper. But even if the love between Eleanor and Lou is the movie’s most central human relationship it unfortunately never turns into the kind of special love that the movie is so keen to present which is mostly caused by the lack of chemistry between the two leading actors – even if Gary Cooper is more to be blamed for this. Teresa Wright does her best to craft a strong love/friendship-relationship which wins its strength from her ability to let Eleanor not be completely swept off her feet but actually realizing the sentiment of her own feelings and being aware of them. But still the two actors didn’t truly fit together as Gary Cooper always seems to be most comfortable with either an actress with a stronger personality than his own or an actress who takes the lead in their relationship – but while Teresa Wright does manage to shape the tone of the love between Lou and Gehrig, the script never allows to be the more decisive part in this marriage, always keeping her a reacting character. Teresa Wright’s sweetness might be charming but ultimately not very satisfying and she also constantly both retreats from the movie by choice to let Gary Cooper shine and by force since the screenplay drops her far too often and so she cannot meet the demands for the perfect co-star for Gary Cooper.




So, even if the part of Eleanor did not allow Teresa Wright any artistic stretches, she was still able to add a warm and welcome presence to the proceedings. Gary Cooper has the right personality for the leading male part but most supporting players fail to bring any quality to their roles and so it is Teresa Wright who improves the movie whenever she appears – taken by itself, her performance does not truly satisfy but taken in the context of The Pride of the Yankees, she still manages to craft Eleanor as a lovely, lively, intelligent and appealing young woman. Her tasks may not be very challenging but she mostly fulfills them. And during the final scenes of the movie, she finally got a chance to show more than just a beaming smile and actively crafted some of the movie’s most poignant moments. Her breakdown at the doctor’s office in which she promises that she will never let Lou know that she is aware of his fatal illness is a quietly done but still very effective display of human tragedy and later Teresa Wright delivers one of the classic ‘smile through tears’, hiding the grief behind a masque of laughter and cheerfulness even if her display of those two contrasting emotions sometimes feels a bit too obvious and forced. But her final moments on the screen belong to the most unforgettable work of her career, remaining behind, letting Lou enter the spotlight on his own, underlining her role as the supportive wife in the background but crafting a haunting moment with her lonely close-ups, portraying love, grief, pride, misery and happiness in a single moment. So, to sum it up, there is no denying that Teresa Wright is an actress who can be beautifully natural in her parts and always feels completely comfortable in her roles – but she also tended to limit her own possibilities whenever a screenplay did not show her how to add depth and layers to her character. And in The Pride of the Yankees, the limitations of the character only added to the overall one-dimensionality of her performance. She may be charming enough to fulfill the task of embodying the character of the perfect American woman and is moving enough when she needs to be and it’s hard not to like her performance – but it’s also hard to truly admire her. Overall, Teresa Wright’s approach to the part is charming and lovely but it is neither truly impressive nor challenging. Still, she created some of the movie’s most memorable moments and always adds a welcome change of pace whenever she appears. A competent performance of a weak role that gets

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Title: Best Actress 1942: Teresa Wright in "The Pride of the Yankees"
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