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Teresa Wright

Sweet and sensitive Teresa Wright made her Broadway debut as an understudy in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" and, after touring in that play, attracted the attention of Samuel Goldwyn while playing the ingenue in the original Broadway production of "Life with Father." She made a sensational transition to screen acting, earning a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for her film debut as the seemingly fragile Southern belle Alexandra Giddens who more than holds her own with her scheming mother Regina (Bette Davis) in William Wyler's "The Little Foxes" (1941), based on the Lillian Hellman play. Wright avoided the sophomore slump with Oscar nominations for her next two movies, winning as Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Greer Garson's daughter-in-law in Wyler's "Mrs. Miniver" while falling short in the Best Actress category as the wife of Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper) in "Pride of the Yankees" (both 1942). Despite her formidable talent, she was just a little too plain to really flourish as a Hollywood starlet, though she beautifully captured the small-town adolescent who gradually comes to discover her beloved Uncle Charlie is a murderer in Alfred Hitchcock's "A Shadow of a Doubt" (1943) and reteamed with Wyler as the daughter of a returning veteran in the Oscar-winning "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946), her radiant smile lighting up the final scene with the seeming promise of good times ahead with Dana Andrews.