New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ClassyCo" data-source="post: 265976" data-attributes="member: 7">Gale Sondergaard was an American actress, known for her supporting roles in a host of popular films during the 1930s and 1940s. She began her career in the early 1930s as a theatre actress. She studied at the Minneapolis School of Dramatic Arts before joining the John Keller Shakespeare Company. Sondergaard toured in productions of HAMLET, JULIUS CAESAR, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, and MACBETH. After she became a member of the Theatre Guild, she began to find work on the New York legitimate stage. Sondergaard made her film debut in ANTHONY ADVERSE (1936) as Faith Paleologus and became the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. As a result, her career as an actress flourished in the late thirties. She appeared in many big-budget successes, such as THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA, the 1937 film starring Paul Muni, and she supported two-time Oscar winner Luise Rainier in DRAMATIC SCHOOL in 1938. Sondergaard had been the original choice to play the Wicked Witch of the West during the pre-production stages of MGM's THE WIZARD OF OZ in 1938. The original intent was for the character to be slinky and seductive, an inspiration drawn from the evil queen in SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. This idea was ultimately scrapped, however, and Sondergaard was replaced with character actress Margaret Hamilton. Sondergaard's career continued successfully into the 1940s. She kicked off that decade by appearing in THE LETTER (1940), a stylish drama starring Bette Davis. She also had a role in THE BLUE BIRD (1940), a critical and commercial failure, which had been Fox's imitation of THE WIZARD OF OZ. One of her few leading roles came in THE SPIDER WOMAN in 1943, a story in the Sherlock Holmes franchise. It was a popular success. She also headlined THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK three years later. Her beauty and Danish ethnicity made her ideal for smaller, seductive roles in melodramas. She was quite often typecast in these kinds of roles. In 1946, she received another Oscar nominated for playing Lady Thiang in the big-budget dramatization of ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM. Even still, her career was all but over in the late 1940s. After appearing in EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE in 1949, she stayed away from acting for twenty years. She began acting on television in the late 1960s, appearing on shows such as IT TAKES A THIEF and GET SMART. She also had a role on the daytime soap opera THE BEST OF EVERYTHING in 1970. She later appeared on RYAN'S HOPE in 1976. Her final on-screen role was in ECHOES, a 1983 low-budget film. Following several strokes, Gale Sondergaard died in 1985, aged eighty-six.  [ATTACH=full]26428[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?