100th Birthday: Ann Sheridan
Saturday, February 21, 2015 at 4:52PM 
Tim here. Today would have been the 100th birthday of Ann Sheridan, a star at Warner Bros. in the '30s and '40s who died at the age of 51. She's not as well-known today as some other actresses from that era: with no Oscar nominations to her name, the collection-obsessed among us have no reason to keep track of her, and none of her lead roles were in canonized classics. But around World War II, she was a major star and sex symbol, one of the most popular pin-up girls with the soldiers overseas.
Sheridan moved easily between genres, taking major roles in prestige projects like the Best Picture nominee Kings Row or high-end comedies including The Man Who Came to Dinner and I Was a Male War Bride, opposite Cary Grant, under the direction of Howard Hawks (this latter film was also her final big hit). But 21st Century viewers are probably most likely to recognize her thanks to her steady presence in crime dramas and films noirs made at Warners, such as 1938's excellent Angels with Dirty Faces and 1940's City for Conquest, both opposite James Cagney, Raoul Walsh's acerbic trucking thriller They Drive By Night, where she stole the film from tough guy icons George Raft and Humphrey Bogart, and the under-seen Nora Prentiss from 1947.
Nobody could ever accuse Sheridan of belonging in the company of a Barbara Stanwyck, to name an approximate contemporary who worked in the same territory of burning sexuality and harshness. But in her best roles, like They Drive by Night and Nora Prentiss, she exudes a bluntness and sharp wit that stand up exceedingly well by modern standards. The mixture of toughness and sensuality she was best at served her well in the narrow time period when she thrived, and if you've never encountered any of her stand-out roles – and they are, admittedly, not always the easiest things to scrounge up – there's no time like this anniversary to fix that.
Reader Comments (12)
"soft when she ought to be, hard when she has to be" -OMG. best tagline outside of a Hayward flick. Love it.
Love Ann Sheridan! As with most big stars of the studio era she had an enormous output with a lot of junk on her sheet but some real prizes mixed in. She is seriously underappreciated and should have had at least several nominations to her credit. 1942 alone contained both a lead performance in Kings Row and a comic supporting gem in The Man Who Came to Dinner that were both deserving. After her major star period came her best performance in the little known Come Next Spring that I've always felt was deserving not only of a nomination but that year's Best Actress win.
She was excellent in drama but comedy was really her strength, some of her best beside the ones already mentioned: Torrid Zone, The Doughgirls, George Washington Slept Here and Take Me to Town.
Known for her down to earth personality and kindness she was not without ego and foolishly turned down Mildred Pierce because she didn't want to play the mother of a teenager.
She was also known to have a cutting wit, there's a story that when she initially arrived in Hollywood, as Clara Lou Sheridan, one of the contest winners for the pre-code film Search for Beauty Paramount decided to sign a few of the contestants to contracts and left who would get the nod to the producers of the film, Lloyd Sheldon and Emanuel Cohen. The two men couldn't decide and agreed to throwing the photos of the possibilities in the air and chose whoever's photo landed on their backs with their face up, Sheridan being one of them. When Sheldon related the story to Ann years later at a party she shot back "And I've been on my back ever since you bastard!"
A real knockout whose three pack a day smoking habit did her in she worked right up until the end. She was starring in a cute Western comedy series called Pistols and Petticoats and resting on a board between scenes to conserve her energy until a few days before her passing.
I feel a little bit terrible but even though I've seen several of those movies and I recognise the name, I don't remember her performances at all. I didn't even recognise the picture.
But I love these kinds of writeups of classic-Hollywood-era actresses and I'll definitely be paying closer attention to Sheridan when I revisit some of these.
eg. I absolutely despised The Man Who Came to Dinner and I suspect I missed something so I'm pretty eager to give it another shot
My favorite Sheridan moment is her sassy number in the all-star musical "Thank Your Lucky Stars"(1943). The song's called "Love Isn't Born, It's Made". And everything that's wonderful about Sheridan - looks , personality, talent - is on glorious display here. Joyce Reynolds and some other Warner starlets flounce around beside her, but Sheridan effortlessly puts them all in the shade - and does it with the good-natured pizzazz that was her trademark. Plus nobody ever, ever looked better in a snood!
A dame with a great speaking voice.
Goran - I'm with you there. I'm highly familiar with her name but I can never go, "Hey it's Ann Sheridan!" if one of her movies is playing. jolel6's story of her beauty contest background probably explains it best. :/
I'm a Warner Bros baby so Annsheridan (one word to me) is my Queen, second only to Great Empress Bette. Ida is the Grand Duchess, of course.
Capita-I'm with you on loving those Warners girls. Bette of course was the queen but I've always loved Ida Lupino a little more. She had Davis's fire but a more gentle soft side and of course she went on to a significant career as a director again without any sort of recognition. Like Ann she deserves to be much better known.
It's shocking how many of those talented women, besides Sheridan and Lupino- Alexis Smith, Faye Emerson, Glenda Farrell, Priscilla Lane, Lee Patrick, Mayo Methot and the amazing Ann Dvorak to name a few all went their entire careers without any sort of award acknowledgement.
I've been a big fan of hers for a long time. She was a natural in front of the camera, but she never got the definitive role or film that could have identified her for audiences today. She was unlucky that her best work often got overshadowed by someone else's showier role or moment. For example, she was exceptional as the warm Randy in Kings Row, but everyone only remembers Reagan's "where's the rest of me?" moment. She was perfection in the first half of They Drive By Night, but audiences walked out remembering Ida Lupino's hysterical "The door made me do it" breakdown scene. I Was A Male War Bride is remembered for Cary Grant in drag. The Man Who Came to Dinner is remembered for the acidic lines of the lead, not her dead-on support.
On the plus side, she was good and memorable enough to be remembered on her 100th Birthday, and classic film fans know her value, so she did make her mark.
Thanks for this blog recognizing Ann Sheridan on the occasion of her 100th birthday. I am a relatively new Ann Sheridan fan. I always knew who she was as an actress; but until fairly recently, I had not seen that many of her movies or paid that much attention to her in the ones that I had seen. After viewing one of her films again on TCM a few years ago, something about her performance made me take note. From then on, I have tried to watch more and more of her films. I have read as much about her as I can find.
I have really come to appreciate Ms Sheridan as an actress and as a delightful woman. With a great consistency and a style of her own, Ms Sheridan delivered one fine performance after another - even in some parts and movies that forced upon her by the studio.
While I thoroughly enjoy her in all of the movies mentioned above from the 1930s and 1940s - most of which can be seen on TCM or ordered on DVD - I have come to really like Ms Sheridan's films from the 1950s. Woman on the Run - which I read she co-produced with no credit - seems to have become a noir favorite and has been featured at several film noir festivals in the last couple of years. I like her in Stella - the dark humored, offbeat diddy about the death of a relative. Her role opposite John Lund in Steel Town is a solid comedic turn. Take Me to Town is Ms Sheridan's last singing gig in a movie and her scenes with the kids are fun. And as someone else listed above, I think her part as the estranged wife of Steve Cochran in Come Next Spring is excellent and a nice way to round out her career. I think in these later roles, one can easily sense the ease and maturity in her acting.
I hope others who are not already familiar with Ann Sheridan will get to know her and her body of work - especially in this year which marks the centennial of her birth. And if that occurs, perhaps Ms Sheridan will finally gain more of the acknowledgement and recognition that she deserved and that seemed to elude her while she was alive.
There's a great movie, called "Woman on the Run" from 1950 where she starred. It was only recently made available on Kanopy. Highly recommended!!!!
I moved from the Virgin Islands in 1964 to New York City. One of my first encounters with Hollywood stars, was the fantastic Ann Sheridan. It was a small dinner party and I had the emince privilege of sitting with her for hours. It was the highlights of my time in the City, I had the rare opportunity of meeting many stars at that time, but my beloved Ann was the finest, I was in London when she passed, what a dark cloud I had. I love you Ann. God Bless you. Skip Hurley