Born February 14, 1902 in Brooklyn, New York, Thelma Ritter was a hard-working, albeit obscure stage and radio actress whose movie breakthrough came in her first film, in an unbilled bit role in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street. Her portrayal of a mother who is sent to Gimbels by Macy’s Santa made such an impression on producer Daryl F. Zanuck that he ordered an expansion of her part. Unbilled in her next films, as a receptionist in 1948’s Call Northside 777 and as Connie Gilchrist’s card playing partner in 1949’s A Letter to Three Wives she finally received billing and her first Oscar nomination as Bette Davis’ wisecracking dresser/maid/companion in 1950’s All About Eve.
Fourth billed in 1951’s The Mating Season, her self-sacrificing mother of the groom was the film’s dominant character, appearing in every scene in Mitchell Leisen’s classic screwball comedy. It brought her a second Oscar nomination in a year in which she co-starred in two other memorable comedies, As Young As You Feel and The Model and the Marriage-Broker.
Her portrayal of the fictional no-nonsense nurse who bullies Susan Hayward as singer Jane Froman in her recuperation from a devastating plane crash in 1952’s With a Song in My Heart brought her a third consecutive Oscar nomination. She received a fourth for the following year’s Pickup on South Street, a rare film noir to receive an acting nomination. She was the unsinkable Molly Brown in the same year’s Titanic in support of Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb.
Ritter’s best remembered role was as James Stewart’s wisecracking (what else?) nurse in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 classic, Rear Window. Oddly, it failed to earn her a fifth consecutive Oscar nomination.
Fred Astaire’s wisecracking secretary in 1955’s Daddy Long Legs and Deborah Kerr’s supervisor in 1956’s The Proud and Profane were other memorable 1950s roles as were her Emmy nominated performance in the TV version of The Catered Affair and her Tony winning role in New Girl in Town, the musical version of Anna Christie in which she played Marie Dressler’s old screen role opposite Gwen Verdon in Greta Garbo’s.
Ritter received her fifth Oscar nomination for 1959’s Pillow Talk as Doris Day’s inebriated maid. She was equally memorable as Edward G. Robinson’s wife in the same year’s A Hole in the Head. A rare straight dramatic role in 1962’s Birdman of Alcatraz brought her a sixth Oscar as Burt Lancaster’s stern mother. Her six nominations in this category is a record that still stands.
She had memorable roles as the mother who hires Kirk Douglas to find husbands for her daughters in 1963’s For Love or Money and as a frontierswoman in the same year’s How the West Was Won, Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis’ wisecracking housekeeper in 1965’s Boeing Boeing, and as one of the passengers aboard a hostage held subway car in 1967’s The Incident.
Her last part was a minor role in 1968’s What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? , directed by George Seaton who directed her in her first, Miracle on 3th Street.
Thelma Ritter suffered a heart attack and died nine days before her 67th birthday on February 5, 1969.
ESSENTIAL FILMS
ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
The classic comedy-drama about an aging Broadway star and the self-serving ingénue who uses her received an unprecedented fourteen Oscar nominations including one for Ritter who is a hoot as star Bette Davis’ worldly wise dresser/maid/companion who is the first to size up Anne Baxter’s phony backstory with the classic comment, “what a story, everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her behind.” Davis, Baxter, George Sanders and Celeste Holm were also nominated with Sanders winning along with the film and its writer-director, costume design and sound.
THE MATING SEASON (1951), directed by Mitchell Leisen
Ritter is fourth billed in this classic screwball comedy in which she plays the owner of a hamburger stand who poses as a maid in her new daughter-in-law’s home. John Lund is the social climbing son and Gene Tierney is his unsuspecting upper middle-class bride. Third-billed Miriam Hopkins plays Tierney’s snooty mother. Larry Keating is a delight as Lund’s boss who takes a liking to Ritter. This is the kind of film that can only work with superb no-nonsense character actress like a Marie Dressler or a May Robson in control and Ritter more than lives up to the precedent set by those extraordinary actresses two decades earlier.
PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953), directed by Samuel Fuller
Having established herself as the premier character comedy actress of her day, Ritter turned to drama with devastating effect as a police informant who becomes involved with pickpocket Richard Widmark and the message he unwittingly lifts from enemy agents and thus becomes the target of Communist spies in Fuller’s white knuckle suspense thriller. Jean Peters, Meryn Vye, and Richard Kiley co-star. Not to give away plot points but Ritter in her death scene provides one of the most heartbreaking, harrowing performances ever given by any actor in screen history. It earned her a fourth consecutive Oscar nomination.
REAR WINDOW (1954), directed by Alfred Hitchcock
James Stewart is a bored photographer recovering from a broken leg who passes the time by watching his neighbors and begins to suspect one of them of murder. Grace Kelly is Stewart’s fashion plate model girlfriend, and Ritter the wisecracking nurse who attends to the incapacitated Stewart in-between, and sometimes during, his spying bouts. Wendell Corey, Raymond Burr, and Judith Evelyn co-star. It’s difficult to say exactly what Ritter does in this film, but even in a carefully controlled Hitchcock film she manages to effortlessly steal scenes. Nominated for four Oscars including one for Hitchcock, it failed to win any.
THE PROUD AND PROFANE (1956), directed by George Seaton
Seaton, who gave Ritter her first film role in Miracle on 34th Street, gave her one of her best later roles as the Red Cross nurse in charge of a reception station in the South Pacific during World War II. One of her charges is Deborah Kerr as a war widow who volunteers with the Red Cross seeking information on her husband’s demise. William Holden is the tough army colonel with whom Kerr becomes involved in this lesser-known war film. Dewey Martin, William Redfield, and Frank Gorshin also provide memorable support. This was the only film in which six-time Oscar losers Kerr and Ritter appeared together.
THELMA RITTER AND OSCAR
All About Eve (1950) – nominated – Best Supporting Actress
The Mating Season (1951) – nominated – Best Supporting Actress
With a Song in My Heart (1952) – nominated Best Supporting Actress
Pickup on South Street (1953) – nominated Best Supporting Actress
Pillow Talk (1959) – nominated – Best Supporting Actress
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) – nominated – Best Supporting Actress
