Loretta vs. Roz: A Surprise Best Actress Win
Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 11:00AM Please welcome first time contributor Baby Clyde, weighing in on 1947, the year we're celebrating this week...
Rosalind & Loretta, friends and Best Actress rivalsSuch a forgone conclusion was the result of the final award at the 20th Academy Awards, that the audience at the back of the Shrine Auditorium had already started filing out as Frederic March rose to announce the Best Actress winner. They soon stopped in their tracks as a huge gasp swept around the room. No one was more surprised than the previous year’s Best Actor champ who is said to have started reading the name of the expected winner, Rosalind Russell for Mourning Becomes Electra, before stopping and declaring that the awards was, in fact, going to rank outsider Loretta Young for the comedic trifle The Farmers Daughter. The next day noted gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, sitting directly behind her, reported that Russell had already started rising from her seat when Young’s name was called, but styled it out beautifully to lead a standing ovation for her good friend...
Loretta swept up to the stage with all the poise and elegance for which she was famous, wearing a voluminous green gown that would still cause a sensation on any red carpet today...
Praising the other actresses in her category she ended by kissing Oscar and declaring, to roars of laughter from the audience ‘At long last’.
It had been a long time coming.
Appearing in her first film at age 3 she was a leading lady in her teens and despite only being 34 had already been a star for nearly 2 decades by the time of her win. A charming screen presence known for her beauty and class, her co-stars had been a who’s who of Hollywood leading men. Everyone from Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy and James Cagney to Gary Cooper, Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda and Robert Taylor had shared top billing with her and yet few, if any, of the films she made with them are regarded as classics. Her best known work of the period is probably 1935’s The Call of the Wild where she co-starred with ‘The King of Hollywood’ Clark Gable and Orson Welles’ noir classic The Stranger. Academy Award aficionados will know Kentucky, but more for Walter Brennan’s Supporting win that Young’s top billed involvement. Whilst reliable and extremely capable she never quite cracked the upper echelons of stardom. 1947 was the first time she had come close to grabbing Oscar’s attention.
The Farmer’s Wife had been a smash hit that summer. A cheerful comedy in which Young plays the only daughter of an American/Swedish family who starts out as working as a maid for a powerful political family and ends up in Congress herself. It’s a light and breezy affair with a cast full of industry veterans just about breathing life into the slight story; Oscar Bait it is not.
Roz and Loretta, out on the town with Van Johnson
The same can’t be said for Rosalind Russell’s nominated role. She had arrived from Broadway in the mid 30’s and established herself in such films as Craig’s Wife, Night Must Fall and The Citadel. Her big breakthrough came when she stole the show from Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford in George Cukor’s The Women (1939). Roz followed that up going toe to toe with Cary Grant in Howard Hawks’ screwball classic His Girl Friday. She became known for her sparkling comic chops and portraying professional, working women rather than the usual wife or mother roles. Her first Oscar nomination was for 1942’s comedy My Sister Eileen and taking a turn towards more serious fare in the mid 40’s she received her second nomination for biopic Sister Kenny playing the Australian Nurse famed for her work with polio patients.
Mourning Becomes Electra was a no expenses spared adaptation of the legendary Eugene O’Neil play. A serious, important period piece with a top notch cast of acting heavyweights and impeccable literary pedigree, it was everything you’d expect in a stereotypical awards contender. With two losses under her belt Roz was determined to nab the prize. This end she hired PR man Henry Rogers who had represented the two previous year’s winners Joan Crawford and Olivia De Havilland. Having basically invented the art of Oscar campaigning for Crawford’s win he started by getting a Las Vegas casino to declare Russell the odds-on favourite, then various LA organisations awarded her citations as the years’ best and ads were taken out in the trades with quotes from her acting peers and raves from critics. By the time she won the Golden Globe her Oscar seemed in the bag. This was confirmed on the eve of the ceremony when Variety’s controversial polling of Academy voters placed her in 1st with Young a distant 4th.
So what happened? How did she lose in the biggest Best Actress shocker in Oscar history (Until 2018 anyway). In hindsight I think there were three reasons, two of which are familiar to more modern Oscar watchers…
1. Loretta Was Having A Banner Year
A well liked industry veteran Loretta Young had worked with everyone over the previous two decades and was having the most successful year of her professional life. After a summer hit with The Farmer’s Daughter she followed it up at the end of the year with perennial Christmas classic The Bishop’s Wife which was nominated for 5 further Academy Awards. When choosing her as Best Actress voters were undoubtedly rewarding her for both films (the same circumstances that swept Sandra Bullock to victory 62 years later in her double-blockbuster year)
2. Roz’s Film Was A Gigantic Flop
Mourning Becomes Electra is terrible. A giant, lumbering, 3 hour bore that voters would have struggled to get through, as did audiences at the time. The film lost over $2 million and became one of RKO’s most expensive flops. It didn’t help Russell’s cause that new RKO boss Dore Schary hadn’t been around for the production of Mourning but both of the Young vehicles were made under his aegis and all of the studios might was put behind promoting them.
3. Comedy Stood Out In A Field Of High Drama
As Marisa Tomei knows sometimes it pays to be the comic relief. The Best Actress field of 1947 was full of overwrought drama. Whilst Rosalind was dealing with suicide and incest, Susan Hayward was battling alcoholism in Smash Up: The Story of a Woman, Dorothy McGuire confronted anti-Semitism in Best Picture winner Gentleman’s Agreement and Joan Crawford was in and out of mental institutions in Possessed. The only thing Loretta had to tackle was a Swedish accent (a fight she lost) and at a swift 97 minutes Academy members were surely delighted by both the films themes and its length.
Loretta and Roz after Loretta's surprise win. They were friends in real life.
Whilst the crowd were stunned Russell took the loss well. The two were pictured hugging afterwards and she accompanied the winner to all the after parties. Remaining good friends until the end of their lives both had long and extremely illustrious careers for decades, with plenty of further awards success.
Rosalind went back to Broadway in the early 50’s winning a Tony for the musical Wonderful Town, was again nominated for an Oscar for her turn as Auntie Mame in 1958 and won the last of her five Golden Globes playing Mama Rose in the film version of Gypsy (1962). In the 1970s she was finally awarded an Oscar when she was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her charity work.
Nominated again for the 1949’s charming religious dramedy Come To The Stable, Loretta Young astutely moved from film to television soon after and became one of the first movie stars to make a name for themselves in the new medium. The Loretta Young Show, an anthology drama series she hosted in famously elaborate gowns won her three Primetime Emmy Awards as Best Actress in the 50’s. There was no similar shock when she won a Golden Globe for 1986’s TV movie A Christmas Story. Her victory was a more than worthy reward for 70 years in the business.
Previously in our 1947 retrospective
- What 1947 films are currently streaming?
- Agnes Moorehead in Dark Passage
- Kathleen Byron in Black Narcissus
- What was going on in Showbiz that year?
Reader Comments (34)
Having seen all the nominees from 47 I think my vote would've gone to Hayward. Russell who I usually love is terrible in Electra. Young is fine and a good runner up to Hayward in my opinion. I have heard all these rumours about the shocking win that Young's was. It wasn't really a strong lineup and honestly my top 5 feature none of the nominated five.
Joan Crawford, Daisy Kenyon
Jane Greer, Out of the Past
Wendy Hiller, I Know Where I'm Going
Deborah Kerr, Black Narcissus
Ida Lupino, The Man I Love
Welcome, Baby Clyde! This is such an impressive, cool piece - I love having all this context.
I haven't seen Mourning Becomes Electra, but it pains me that Roz never won an Oscar. She was such an electric presence, different from most of the actresses of that era; in some ways, she reminds me a bit of Melissa McCarthy in her fearlessness. She should have won for Auntie Mame (in a great line-up where the winner is probably the weakest performance) and she should have been nominated for Picnic.
BTW, Mourning Becomes Electra is playing on TCM on June 4, along with a host of other rarely-seen Rosalind Russell films, in honor of her birthday.
Susan and Joan were better than both and their films.
Well said Jules ! Rosalind Russell was "an electric presence... she reminds me a bit of Melissa McCarthy in her fearlessness."
I just want to co-sign this marvelous observation, which is certainly true of her work in "The Women" and "His Girl Friday". Her autobiography "Life is a Banquet" is very funny. There is a PBS documentary version of "Life Is a Banquet: The Life of Rosalind Russell" narrated (appropriately) by Kathleen Turner. (another fearless funny lady).
I feel the need to defend Loretta Young a little. Even though I wouldn't have given her an Oscar for "The Farmer's Daughter", I still hate seeing that film brushed off (as it almost always is these days) as something so trivial its cast could only "just about"breathe life into it. That cast (Young, Cotten, Barrymore and Bickford) is operating at a sky high level of skill; the deft script helps rather than hinders them. And the result's as charming now as when it first lit up the box office in '47. The late 40's was a great period for Young; almost every one of her films from '46 to '49 made tons of money.. She's good in all of them too, even great in a couple ("The Stranger" and "The Accused", in both developing a terrific flair for playing women whose nerves are stretched to breaking point).
Earlier in her career, Young to me was the most appealing of pre-Code heroines. Check her out in "She Had to Say Yes" from 1933, as frank and clear-eyed a feminist tragedy as the period produced. And no late 30's star outshone her luminosity in titles like "Ramona" or De Mille's "The Crusades". Walter Brennan's Oscar winning performance in the horse racing trifle "Kentucky"" looks laughable now, one of the grand old actor's few artistic missteps. But Loretta's still impossible to resist in it.
My Oscar choices for '47 would have been:
Joan Bennett "The Macomber Affair"
Jane Greer "Out of the Past"
Ida Lupino "The Man I Love"
Dorothy McGuire "Genteman's Agreement"
Alida Valli "The Paradine Case
with McGuire for the win in a very strong field
But I can't help feeling glad that Young' astonishingly long and successful career did net her at least one piece of Oscar gold.
And - yes- Rosalind Russell was usually pretty wonderful. But definitely not in "Mourning Becomoes Electra". It was a pretentious bore in 1947 and remains one to this day. And had it netted Russell an Oscar, the win would have stood as one of the Academy's most flagrant blunders..
Great piece!
I think there are a few reasons to account for Young's victory:
1. The Other Competition - Crawford had just won a couple of years earlier, so there was no pressing need to give her another. The aloof Hayward wasn't a favourite with co-workers and the Academy had already rewarded alcoholic performances in the two years prior (Ray Milland and Anne Baxter). And McGuire basically was swept in with the Gentleman's Agreement wave.
2. Russell's Performance - It's a mess. She's amateurish in the first act, giving a bad silent film-style job, then finds her footing in the second act before finally delivering some great moments in the third act. As another poster noted, this would have ended up a glaring mistake of a win if the Academy had gone there.
3. Young's Story - We know the Academy loves a comeback and in the previous two years, Crawford and de Havilland had been recognized for their different comebacks. Young had been around since the end of silents, survived breaking free from 20th Century Fox and charting her own independent career, and for those in the know, had publicly avoided a pregnancy scandal that could have ended it all.
The Farmer's Daughter may not have been deep, but it's well-made, charming, and a lot more fun (and re-watchable) than the heavy-goings of the other nominees.
Another problem for Russell was that she doesn't really appear until after the first hour. By that time most of the audience would have been comatose or long gone to the nearest watering hole to get a stiff drink. The movie is nearly unwatchable, a product of the mentality that "boring=artistic". Despite this, I think she's excellent and would have been deserving. But triumphing over a deadly movie is too much like work for the audience, and she was even more deserving for The Women and His Girl Friday. Young is deserving, too, and her movie is fun and goes down easy. No contest.
I loved Loretta, and she deserved the award. Comedy usually gets short shrift from Oscar, so when it happens the film has to be "even better", making her triumph here extra cool. Russell was terrible in MBE, and the other performances one-offs. And the most unexpected BEST ACTRESS award was neither Young's nor 2018's Colman but 1968's perfect tie.
Giving some love to Claire Trevor for Born to Kill and Lauren Bacall for Dark Passage.
It's always amazed me that Russell, who had a strong career of and is probably best remembered for comedy performances, was considered the front-runner in a year when she was in a dull drama and lost to a lighter performance. Her Sylvia Fowler, Hildy Johnson, Ruth Sherwood, Rosemary Sydney, and Mame Dennis still jump off the screen to this day, but her Lavinia Mannon (even the character name is dreary) doesn't even come close to those other characterizations. I am so glad that she won that humanitarian award, but, like Irene Dunne, Carole Lombard, and so many other great actresses primarily known for comedy, she sadly just wasn't appreciated for such performances in her time.
Two great performances were forgotten that year: Deborah Kerr for Black Narcissus (who won the NYFCC), and Martha Raye for Monsieur Verdoux (This one was and is completely forgotten)
I believe the studio (Columbia) wanted to promote Rosalind Russell for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "Picnic", but she fought against it.
Loved the article!
I am no fan of Loretta Young especially after the pre-code era when she became much more mechanical and I didn't think much of The Farmer's Daughter either (though I did love the Inger Stevens TV show that came along later.) but I don't think it was wrong for Roz to lose this one.
I understand her desire for the Oscar and not knowing that Auntie Mame was in her future figured this might be her last shot but even she didn't think much of her work in Mourning Becomes Electra as she said in her biography.
She had prevailed on Dudley Nichols to write and direct her pet project on Sister Kenny the year before and he asked her to return the favor when he got a chance to make Mourning-his pet project and needed a box office star to make it happen. She knew she was miscast but she owed him a favor and was stuck. Outside of Michael Redgrave who is compelling as Orin the entire film is miscast. Though even with the more suitable Olivia de Havilland and Garbo (the two names most often bandied about) as Lavinia and Christine the film would still be a shapeless mess.
My vote out of the five would go to Susan Hayward who would be the only one I'd retain in my personal lineup which would run this way.
Joan Bennett-The Macomber Affair
Susan Hayward-Smash-Up-The Story of a Woman
Ida Lupino-The Man I Love
Gene Tierney-The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Claire Trevor-Born to Kill
In that mix Ida Lupino would be my winner with Claire Trevor a close second.
Thanks guys and thanks to Nathaniel for asking me. First time I've actually written anything official in decades.
I had loads more to say but was WAY too long already.
Personally Roz and Loretta are my 4th and 5th ranked for the year with Susan winning in a landslide. Ironically had she won here then Roz would have easily won in '58 for Auntie Mame.
And Joe (UK) you're right Russell would have been a slam dunk for Picnic but refused to be campaigned Supporting (Even though she clearly was). As far as she was concerned she'd been a star for 20 years and wasn't going to be demoted. Even though her argument may have been somewhat flawed you can't question her principles. Pity they are so lacking in A List category fraudsters these days.
@jjoel6
Interesting observations on "Mourning Becomes Electra". Though - however lofty his theatrical accomplishments - I've never found Michael Redgrave compelling onscreen. And certainly not in "Electra", where I''d say he was just another ponderous part of the problem. Love the Redgrave ladies - Vanessa, Lynn, Vanessa's daughters Natasha and Joely and Corin's daughter Jemma. But I've always found so much of the magic they emanate - in voice, face and manner - sublimely reminiscent of Michael Redgrave's gifted wife Rachel Kempson.
Your alternate line-up of '47 nominees is a strong one. I certainly included Joan Bennett and Ida Lupino in mine (along with Alida Valli, Jane Greer and Dorothy McGuire). But it definitely pained me to leave out Gene Tierney and Claire Trevor, both terrific that year. 47's bumper crop definitely called for an expanded field of nominees.
"Gypsy" was released in 1962.
I really like Russell in Mourning becomes Electra, she was the best of the five nominees, it's not a perfect movie but with good performances and a good source, it was a weak year overall.
Young is just ok in Farmer's daughter and Bishop's wife ((I don't like both movies).
Maybe Deborah Kerr and Gene Tierney deserved to be nominated instead of miss Young.
Yeah, count me among those who had Russell in the top five. Maybe someday we'll do Actress Smackdowns - I'd love to hear the arguments on this year. Loretta Young never did it for me, I'm afraid. As Sasha Valour would say, she combines the joy of smiling with the thrill of just standing there.
Great article - very few people have a knowledge of Oscar trivia like Baby Clyde, so I’m thrilled that they’ll hopefully be sharing it with us here frequently!
Thanks Kermy.
It was awesome to read about this race, even if I’m not particularly fond of Loretta Young. It’s a pity that Kerr or Greer missed the nominations. Academy appreciated Russell but for some reasons they escaped some of her best perfs (The Women, His Girl Friday). Her role in Picnic is not very lovable but she has strong moments and it would have been perfect for a Best Supporting Nom...but the Stars sometimes didn’t want to be supporters...now it goes exactly in the opposite direction...
I am somebody who loves the Academy's youtube channel, and isn't it a great coincidence that Young's victory was one of the biggest shockers, and years later, Young presented one of the biggest best picture shockers - the Chariots of Fire win?
I have a question though: I've read this story countless times, and it's always THE LAST AWARD (with people leaving and so on)... but why was best actress the last presented award in 1947?
Zoooey,
It was typical until 1950 or so for the acting awards to be presented after the Best Picture Award, the last of all being Best Actress. Kind of tells you how high in esteem the actresses were held in those days.
I am baffled by the divisiveness of Dorothy McGuire's performance. Some find her mehh and some think she's great. I personally think she was wonderful in Gentleman's Agreement. Her character was complex, interesting, and had a modern sensibility. I wish though that the writing of her redemption at the end was handled with more elegance. The resolution was a little too neat.
I think with Dorothy I prefer her in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn her previous collab with Kazan. That is the film that they should've awarded him for first
As Baby Clyde knows all too well from my Twitter rants, I'm Team Roz here...but that aside, don't really have strong qualms about Loretta's win!
Baby Clyde, excelent article!
Thank you for such a rich reading...
We’ve had some pretenders (Murtada) for Claudio’s crown, but we just might have a contender (Baby Clyde) to join Eric Blume in the chase. Well done.
@GTAJames. Another obvious reason why Young was the winner is that she was also in The Bishop's Wife, another Oscar favorite.
@Marcos - very true. 1947 was a very good year for her.
I would say the biggest Best Actress upset of all time was Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday over Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson. She certainly would have been my pick, but did anyone expect her to win? And was last year really such a huge upset? Olivia Colman had won the Globe and the BAFTA (as had Marion Cotillard when she pulled Best Actress from Julie Christie's clutches), and she was in a Best Picture nominee. The writing was kind of on the wall for that one.
Young's win came as a huge surprise as the last best actress who won for an outright comedy was Colbert in 1934. It has been a st8 12 yrs from 1935 to 1946 where actresses won for DRAMATIC roles. So no one actually predicted a comedy will nab best actress this time.
Young oso did not win any precursor, going into the Oscar night (GG din not intro the comedy/musical category until 3 yrs later). She certainly din expect it herself, asking to see the envelope tt bears her name before happily accepting the award! She like everyone thot her good fren, Roz will win.
Back to the Variety predictions, Roz is at 1st place n Hayward, 2nd. Had Susie Hayward won in 1947, Roz Russell wld most certainly hav won in 1958, Auntie Mame, her most iconic role!!
In "Mourning Becomes Electra", Roz delivered one of greatest performances in Film History.
She's transcendent, a sparkling diamond made of ice and fire, fury and pain.
She's beyond words.