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Margaret Sullavan
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Margaret Brooke Sullavan (May 16, 1909 January 1, 1960; studio publicity incorrectly reported her born in 1911). Margaret Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. She was especially known for her effortless acting and her distinctive throaty voice. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday.
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Margaret Brooke Sullavan (May 16, 1909 January 1, 1960; studio publicity incorrectly reported her born in 1911). Margaret Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. She was especially known for her effortless acting and her distinctive throaty voice. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday.
Margaret Sullavan preferred working on the stage and only did 16 movies. Only very few of her movies have happy endings. She often portrayed the troubled heroine who eventually would have to face her own mortality and unavoidable death and do so fearlessly and poetically. She retired from the screen in the early forties, but returned in 1950 to make her last movie, No Sad Songs For Me (1950), in which she plays a woman who is dying of cancer. For the rest of her career she would only appear on the stage.
Sullavan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Three Comrades (1938). She died of an overdose of barbiturates on January 1, 1960. She was 50 years old.
Biography
Background
Sullavan was born in Norfolk, Virginia, the daughter of a wealthy stockbroker, Cornelius Sullavan and his wife Garland Brooke.
The first years of Margaretīs childhood were spent isolated from other children. She suffered from a painful muscular weakness in the legs that prevented her from walking, so that she wasnīt able to mingle with other children until the age of six. However, the somewhat overprotected childhood did not condition Margaret toward shyness and introversion. After recovery she emerged as an adventurous and tomboyish child who preferred playing with the children from the poorer neighbourhood much to the regrets of her class-conscious parents..
She attended boarding school at Chatham Episcopal Institute (now Chatham Hall), where she was president of the student body and delivered the salutory oration in 1927. She moved to Boston and lived with her half-sister, Weedie, where she studied dance at the Boston Denishawn studio and (against her parents wishes) drama at the Copely Theatre. When her parents cut her allowance to a minimum, Sullavan defiantly paid her way as a clerk in the Harvard Cooperative Bookstore (The Coop), located in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Early Career
Soon Sullavan succeeded in getting a part in a Harvard Dramatic Society show and made her stage debut in its spring 1929 production Close Up, a musical written by Harvard senior and later Broadway and Hollywood composer Bernard Hanighen. The President of the Harvard Dramatic Society, Charles Leatherbee, was planning to set up a summer theatre on Cape Cod with the University Players. He persuaded Sullavan to join them. Another member of the University Players was Henry Fonda. In the summer 1929 Sullavan appeared opposite Fonda in The Devil in the Cheese, her debut on the professional stage. Sullavan did about 50 shows with the University Players.
Sullavanīs parents did not approve of her choice of career. However, in 1930 she got to play the lead in Strictly Dishonorable by Preston Sturges with her parents among the audience. Confronted with her evident talent their objections ceased. "To my deep relief.", Sullavan later recalled. "I thought Iīd have to put up with their yappings on the subject forever".
A Shubert scout saw her in that play as well and eventually she met Lee Shubert himself. At that moment Sullavan suffered from a bad case of laryngitis. Consequently, her voice was huskier than usual. Shubert loved it. In subsequent years Sullavan would joke that she cultivated that "laryngitis" into a permanent hoarseness by standing in every available draft.
Sullavan made her debut on Broadway, in "A Modern Virgin" (a comedy by Elmer Harris), on May 20, 1931. From early on in her career Sullavan won a reputation for her natural and seemingly effortless acting, which enabled her to give personality to some, at times, rather amorphous characters. At one point in 1932 she starred in four Broadway flops in a row (If Love Were All, Happy Landing, Chrysalis (with Humphrey Bogart) and Bad Manners), but the critics praised Sullavan for her performance in all of them.
In March 1933 Sullavan replaced another actor in Dinner at Eight in New York. Movie director John M. Stahl happened to be watching the play and was intrigued by Sullavan and decided she would be perfect for a picture he was planning, Only Yesterday. At that time Sullavan had already turned down offers from Paramount and Columbia for five-year contracts. Sullavan was offered a three-year, two-pictures-a-year contract at $1,200 a week. She accepted it and had a clause put in her contract that allowed her to return to the stage on occasion
Later on in her career Sullavan would only sign short-term contracts because she did not want to be "owned" by any studio."
Hollywood
Sullavan arrived in Hollywood on May 16, 1933, her 24th birthday. Her film debut came that same year in Only Yesterday. Her transition from the stage to the screen seemed to have happened without much difficulty because her projection, above all, was her naturalness. The larger-than-life expressions and movements from the stage were simply scaled down. On top of that her petite stature, the hoarse sensuous voice with its wide range and the expressive and rueful eyes seemed perfect for the screen with its lingering shots and close-ups.
Sullavan always chose her scripts carefully and they were not exactly conventional choices. Happy endings did not agree with Margaret Sullavan. Her characters would often die after a long and brave struggle. It was joked that she had a clause in her contract that required a lengthy death scene in each of her movies.
It was her first movie, Only Yesterday (1933), that made Sullavan a star. In the movie a young woman (Sullavan) meets and falls in love with a man (John Boles). He is sent to fight in France, she has his child, and then must deal with the fact that he doesnīt recognize her when they meet again. We follow the woman from her hopeful youth to her gradual disillusionment. Sullavanīs character has a weak heart and when Boles finally remembers who she is - itīs too late.
Sullavan wasnīt satisfied with her own performance in Only Yesterday. When she saw herself in the early rushes, she had been so appalled that she had tried to buy out her contract for $2,500, but Universal would have none of that. Director John M. Stahl got her through the film - and a star was born. In his November 10, 1933, review in The New York Herald Tribune, Richard Watts Jr. wrote that Sullavan "plays the tragic and lovelorn heroine of this shrewdly sentimental orgy with such forthright sympathy, wise reticence and honest feeling that she establishes herself with some definiteness as one of the cinema people to be watched".
Little Man, What Now? (1934), is the story about a couple (Margaret Sullavan and Douglas Montgomery) who are struggling to survive in the poverty of post-WWI Germany. The film is a blend of realism and romanticism. Itīs not only a film about a countryīs political and social collapse, it is first and foremost a convincing and touching lovestory. Montgomery keeps loosing his jobs and he is the most vulnerable of the two of them. He cannot find the strength to cope with life during the Depression. He is almost like a child in their relationship and in his search for comfort with his stronger down-to-the-ground wife. Sullavan takes care of him with an almost maternal compassion and patience.
Originally Universal had been reluctant to make a movie about unemployment, starvation and homelessness, but "Little Man" had been an important project to Sullavan. After the somewhat soapy Only Yesterday she wanted to try "the real thing". "Itīs a slice of life", she enthused. "Life as so many people are living it today in America and anywhere". Sullavan had her movie. She later said, that it had been one of the few things she had done in Hollywood that gave her a great measure of satisfaction.
The Good Fairy (1935) was a comedy that Sullavan, although not a natural comedienne, had insisted on doing to demonstrate her "wide-ranging versatility". Her then-husband William Wyler was the director.
King Vidorīs So Red the Rose (1935) deals with the Civil Warīs effects on the South and preceded Gone With the Wind by four years and Margaret Mitchellīs novel by one year. Sullavan plays a childish Southern-belle who matures into a responsible woman. The film also deals with the situation of the freed black characters, something that does not come up in Gone With the Wind (1939).
In Next Time We Love (1936) Sullavan plays opposite the then-unknown James Stewart. Sullavan had been campaigning for Stewart to be her leading man and the studio complied with her wish out of fear that she would otherwise stage a threatened strike. The film deals with a married couple that has grown apart over the years. Stewart works overseas as a reporter, while Sullavan becomes a star on the stage in New York. Sullavan goes to Europe to ask her husband for a divorce, but when she learns that Stewart is dying of some disease, she assures him that they will stay together until the end. The plot is unconvincing and simple, but the gentle interplay between Sullavan and Stewart saves the movie from being a soapy and sappy experience. Next Time We Love would be the beginning of one of Hollywoodīs most endearing partnerships, that of Sullavan and Stewart. They would eventually make four movies together.
In the comedy The Moon is Our Home (1936) Sullavan plays opposite her ex-husband Henry Fonda. The original script was rather pallid and Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell were brought in to punch up the dialogue, reportedly on Sullavanīs insistence. Sullavan and Fonda are playing a newly married couple and the movie is a cavalcade of insults and quips.
Sullavanīs seventh movie Three Comrades (1938) is a bleak drama set in post-WWI Germany and in it Sullavan is at her best. Three returning German soldiers meet Sullavan who joins them and eventually marries one of them. When we learn that Sullavan suffers from tuberculosis, we know what will happen. In Three Comrades Sullavan delivers one of the most lyrical death scenes in movie history. (Sullavan was to gain an Oscar nomination for her role and was named the yearīs best actress by the New York Film Critics Association).
Sullavan decided to reunite with James Stewart in The Shopworn Angel (1938). Stewart is playing a sweet, naive Texan soldier on his way to Europe (WWI). He falls in love with a showgirl (Sullavan) and as he is about to be shipped overseas, he pleads with her to marry him right away. Even though Sullavan does not love Stewart, she understands how much it means to him and she agrees to a hasty wedding. Later, when Sullavan is about to go on stage to do her act, she gets the news of his death. She sighs, wipes away her tears, and walks on to the nightclub floor and sings, still in tears: "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile".
Sullavanīs ninth movie is the rather soapy The Shinning Hour (1938). This time Sullavan is suicidal. When she finds out that her newly married sister-in-law, Joan Crawford, and Sullavanīs husband are in love with each other, she rushes into a burning house to kill herself. Crawford saves Sullavan from the flames, but Sullavan is burned critically. When Sullavanīs husband comes to see her, he realizes that she is, and always has been, the one for him. This scene is worth waiting for. Sullavan is in her sickbed (her face completely covered in bandages) and unable to talk - her eyes have to do all the work.
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) may well be the best romantic comedy ever made. Sullavan and Stewart are together again. They play a couple of colleagues who do not get along at work. But they do have one thing in common: they have both responded to a lonely-hearts ad and are (without knowing it) exchanging heartfelt letters with each other. Sullavanīs career has no more heartbreaking close-up than that of her face gazing into her empty letter-box.
The Mortal Storm (1940) was the last movie Sullavan and Stewart ever did together. Sullavan is a young German girl engaged to a confirmed Nazi (Robert Young) in 1933. When she realizes the true nature of his political views, she breaks the engagement and turns her attention to anti-Nazi Stewart. Later, trying to flee the Nazi regime, Sullavan and Stewart attempt to ski across the border to safety in Austria. In the attempt Sullavan is gunned down by the Nazis (under orders from her ex-fiance). Stewart, at her request, picks her up and skies into Austria so she can die in a free country. (Hitler reportedly took one look at the movie and banned all MGM movies in Nazi Germany).
Back Street (1941) is considered one of the best performances of Sullavanīs Hollywood career. She wanted Charles Boyer to play opposite her. In fact she wanted Boyer so much that she agreed to surrender top billing to him. Boyer plays a selfish and married banker and Sullavan his long-suffering mistress. Although he loves Sullavan, he is unwilling to leave his wife and family in favour of her. Sullavan will spend months and months in her little apartment waiting for his unfrequent visits. She is well aware that he will ruin her life, but she also knows that she cannot live without him. (Many felt that Sullavan rated an Academy Award nomination, if not the award itself , for her performance).
So Ends Our Night (1941) is yet another wartime drama. We follow a group of refugees trying to escape persecution by the Nazis in early WW II. Sullavan (on loan for a one-picture deal from Universal) plays a Jewish girl perpetually on the move with falsified passport and identification papers and always fearing that the officials will discover her game. On her way across Europe she meets up with a young Jewish boy (Glenn Ford) and the hunted couple falls in love. The Sullavan-Ford romance is throughly convincing and moving. A 1940 court decision had obligated Sullavan to fulfill her original 1933 Universal agreement. Two additional pictures were made legal "musts". Back Street (1941) had been the first and as Universal long had been urging a light comedy on her, Appointment for Love (1941) would be Sullavanīs last picture with that company. In Appointment for Love Sullavan labored with Boyer again. Boyerīs character marries Sullavan who tells him that his past affairs mean nothing to her. She insists that each have an appartment in the same building and that they meet only once a day, at 7 a.m., a situation which makes for some very funny episodes.
Cry Havoc (1943) is yet another war drama (WW II) but this is one of the rare all-female pictures ever made. Sullavan is the strong mother figure who keeps a bunch of ill-assorted nurses in line in a dugout in Bataan, while they are awaiting the advance of Japanese soldiers who are about to take over. Cry Havoc was the last movie that Sullavan ever did with MGM. After its completion she was free of all movie commitments, doubtless to her relief. Sullavan had often referred to MGM and Universal as "jails". When her husband, Leland Hayward, tried to read her the good reviews of Cry Havoc, she responded with usual bluntness: "You read them, use them for toilet paper. I had enough hell with that damned picture while making it - I donīt want to read about it now!"
Sullavan would retire from the movies from 1943-50 and concentrate on her family and the stage. She came back to the screen in 1950 to do one last movie, No Sad Songs for Me. With her weakness for the tear-jerking drama, the script, no doubt, must have appealed to her. She is playing a fifties suburban wife and mother who learns that she will die of cancer within a year and who then determines to find a "second" wife for her soon-to-be-widowered husband (Wendell Corey). Natalie Wood, then eleven, plays their daughter.
After No Sad Songs for Me and its favourable reviews, Sullavan had a number of offers for other films, but she decided to concentrate on the stage for the rest of her career.
Margaret Sullavan had a reputation of being temperamental and straightforward. On one occasion Henry Fonda (then her ex-husband) had decided to take up a collection for the fireworks on July 4. When Sullavan had refused to make a contribution, Fonda complained loudly to a fellow actor. Then Sullavan rose from her seat , doused Fonda from head to foot with a pitcher of ice water. Fonda made a stately exit, and Sullavan, composed and unconcerned, returned to her table and ate heartily. (Still, they remained lifelong friends).Another of her blowups almost literally killed Sam Wood, one of the founders of the Motion Picture Alliance. Wood was a keen and hell-bent anti-Communist. He dropped dead from a heart attack shortly after a raging argument with Sullavan, who had refused to fire a writer on a proposed film on account of his left-wing views.Not surprissingly, MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer always seemed wary and nervous in her presence. "She was the only player who outbullied Mayer", Eddie Mannix, MGM, later said of Sullavan. "She gave him the willies".
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street.
Co-starring With James Stewart
Sullavan`s co-starring with James Stewart are among the highlights of her and Stewartīs early career. In 1935 Sullavan had decided on doing "Next Time We Love". She had strong reservations about the story, but it was the best of a weak field, and, after all, she had to "work off the damned contract".The script contained a role she thought might be ideal for James Stewart, one of her old friends from the University Players.
It was years earlier, during a casual conversation with some fellow actors on Broadway that Sullavan first predicted that Stewart one day would become a major Hollywood star.No one had taken her seriously. By 1936, Stewart was a contract player at MGM but getting only small parts in B movies. At that time Sullavan worked for Universal and when she brought up Stewartīs name, they were puzzled. The Universal casting-people had never heard of him. At Sullavanīs suggestion Universal agreed to test him for her leading man and eventually he was borrowed from a willing MGM to star with Sullavan in Next Time We Love.Stewart had been nervous and unsure of himself during the early stages of production. At that time he had only had two minor MGM parts which had not given him much camera experience. The director Edward H. Griffith began to bully the frightened Stewart. "Maggie, heīs wet behind the ears", Griffith told Sullavan. "Heīs going to make a mess of things".But Sullavan had believed in Stewart, much more than anyone else, including Stewart himself. She spent the evenings coaching him and helping him scale down his akward mannerisms and hesitant speech that were soon to be famous around the world. She gave him confidence and taught him to be himself. "It was Margaret Sullavan who made James Stewart a star", director Griffith later said. "And she did, too", Bill Grady from MGM agreed. "That boy came back from Universal so changed I hardly recognized him".
Next Time We Love was a soapy and tear-jerking story, but the movie was saved by the interplay and chemistry between the two leads, Sullavan and Stewart.
The inevitable gossip in Hollywood at that time (1935-36) was that William Wyler, Sullavanīs then-husband, was suspicious about his wifeīs and Stewartīs private rehearsing together. In fact a lot of people were during the late thirties.When Sullavan divorced Wyler in 1936 and married Leland Hayward that same year, they moved to a colonial house just a block down from James Stewart.Stewartīs frequent visits to the Sullavan/Hayward home soon restoked the rumors of his romantic feelings for Sullavan.
Sullavanīs and Stewartīs second movie together was The Shopworn Angel (1938). "Why, theyīre red-hot when they get in front of a camera", Louis B. Mayer, MGM, said about their onscreen chemistry. "I donīt know what the hell it is, but it sure jumps off the screen".Walter Pidgeon, who is part of the triangle in The Shopworn Angel, later recalled: "I really felt like the odd-man-out in that one. It was really all Jimmy and Maggie...It was so obvious he was in love with her. He came absolutely alive in his scenes with her, playing with a conviction and a sincerity I never knew him to summon away from her".
However, superior to all the gossip towers the friendship between Stewart and the Sullavan/Hayward family and the onscreen interplay between Sullavan and Stewart. Eventually the duo would do four movies together from 1936-40 (Next Time We Love, The Shopworn Angel, The Shop Around The Corner and The Mortal Storm) of which The Shop Around The Corner is considered a classic.
Late Career
Throughout her entire career Sullavan seemed to prefer the stage to the movies. She felt, that only on the stage could she improve her skills as an actor. "When I really learn to act, I may take what I have learned back to Hollywood and display it on the screen", she said in an interview in October 1936 (when she was doing Stage Door on Broadway between movies). "But as long as the flesh-and-blood theatre will have me, it is to the flesh-and-blood theatre Iīll belong. I really am stage-struck. And if that be treason, Hollywood will have to make the most of it".
Another reason for her early retirement from the screen (1943) was that she wanted to spend more time with her children, Brooke, Bridget and Bill (then 6, 4 and 2 years old). She felt that she had been neglecting them and felt guilty about it.
Sullavan would still do stage work on occasion. From 1943-44 she was the sexually inexperienced, but curious, Sally Middleton in The Voice of the Turtle (by John William Van Druten) on Broadway and later in London (1947). After her short return to the screen in 1950 with No Sad Songs for Me, she did not return to the stage until 1952. Her choice then was as the suicidal Hester Collier, who meets fellow sufferer Mr. Miller (Herbert Berghof) in The Deep Blue Sea by Terrence Rattigan. Later, in 1953 she agreed to appear in Sabrina Fair by Samuel Taylor. Although 44 at the time she excelled as the chauffeurīs 23 year old daughter, Sabrina Fairchild, co-starring with Joseph Cotton.
In 1955-56 Sullavan appeared in Janus, a comedy by Carolyn Green. Sullavan played the part of Jessica who writes under the pen name Janus and Robert Preston played her husband. The play ran for 251 performances from Nov. 1955 to Jun. 1956.
In the late fifties Sullavanīs hearing and depression was getting worse. However, in 1959 she agreed to do Sweet Love Remembered by Ruth Goetz. It was to be Sullavan`s first Broadway appearance in four years. Rehearsals began on December 1, 1959. Sullavan had mixed emotions about a return to acting and her depression soon became clear to everyone: "I loathe acting", she said on the very day she started rehearsals. "I loathe what it does to my life. It cancels you out. You cannot live while you are working. You are a person surrounded by an unbreachable wall".That was the last interview she ever gave. The play was to open on February 4, 1960. Sullavan died on January 1, 1960.
Marriages
Sullavan was married four times. She married Henry Fonda on December 25 1931 in Baltimore, Maryland, while both were performing with the University Players in its 18-week winter season there. However, Fondaīs lack of experience and confidence didnīt go well with the passionate and determined Sullavan and the marriage lasted only two months. Sullavan was then involved with Broadway producer Jed Harris for some time. Trying to escape Harrisīs somewhat sinister personality she, in late 1934, married William Wyler, the director of her next movie, The Good Fairy (1935). Her second marriage lasted just over a year and they divorced in March 1936. Sullavanīs third husband was agent and producer Leland Hayward. Hayward had been Sullavanīs agent since 1931 and their relationship had been deepening all through 1936; they had already become lovers, and Brooke, their "love child", had been conceived that October. They both wanted the baby and married on November 15, 1936.
Many in Hollywood were surprised that Sullavanīs marriage to Hayward was going so well, considering her poor track record with her two other tries. With the birth of her first baby, Sullavanīs personality mellowed and softened somewhat. Sullavan was to have a baby every other year - Brooke in 1937, Bridget in 1939 and Bill in 1941. Their marriage lasted about 11 years and ended when Sullavan discovered that Hayward was cheating on her. With her Southern pride Sullavan could not forgive him. At her insistence they divorced in 1947 and three years later she married Kenneth Wagg, an English investment banker, to whom she was married at the time of her death.
Illness and Death
Margaret Sullavan suffered from a congenital hearing defect called otosclerosis that worsened as she aged, making her more and more hard of hearing. Her voice had developed its distinctive throatiness because she could hear low tones better than high ones. From early 1957 Sullavanīs hearing was getting worse and worse, she was becoming depressed and sleepless, often wandered about all night. She would often go to bed and stay there for days, her only words: "Just let me be, please".
Sullavan had kept her hearing problem largely hidden. On January 8, 1960 (one week after Sullavanīs death), in The New York Post reporter Nancy Seely wrote: "The thunderous applause of a delighted audience - was it only a dim murmur over the years to Margaret Sullavan?" Seely theorized under the heading, MARGARET SULLAVANīS SECRET. "Did the poised and confident mien of the beautiful actress mask a sick fear, night after night, that sheīd miss an important cue?"
In addition to her hearing defect, Sullavanīs children, Brooke, and in particular Bridget and Bill, often proved rebellious and contrary, hurting her deeply. There was irony in this, for she had in all three instances interrupted her career at a high spot to give them birth and attention. As a result of the divorce from Hayward, the family fell apart. Sullavan felt that Hayward was trying to alienate their children from her. When the children went to California to visit their father they were so spoiled with expensive gifts, that when they returned to their mother in Connecticut, they were deeply discontented with her rather staid lifestyle. By 1955, the two youngest children told their mother that they preferred to stay with their father permanently. Sullavan had a depression. She felt betrayed after having sacrificed years of her career for her childrenīs sake, years that would have been productive and profitable. She had a breakdown. Sullavanīs oldest daughter, Brooke, later (in 1977) wrote compassionately about the breakdown in her book "Haywire: Sullavan had humiliated herself by begging her son to stay with her. He remained adamant and his mother had started to cry. "This time she couldnīt stop", Brooke Hayward writes. "Even from my room the sound was so painful I went into my bathroom and put my hands on my ears".
In another scene from the book, a friend of the family (Millicent Osborne) had been alarmed by the sound of whimpering from the bedroom: "She walked in and found mother under the bed, huddled up in a fetal position. Kenneth was trying to get her out. The more authoritative his tone of voice, the farther under she crawled. Millicent took him aside and urged him to speak gently, to let her stay there until she came out of her own accord".
In yet another scene from the book, her husband, Kenneth Wagg, had been searching for Sullavan for hours: "...then taken the car and searched some more. Heīd found her curled up pitifully in a ditch by the side of the road. She told him that sheīd gone for a walk and fallen asleep looking for her lipstick. When he got her back to the house, sheīd locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out. That was when heīd called the doctor. All pill bottles had been removed from the medicine cabinets".
Eventually Sullavan agreed to spend some time (two and a half months) in a private mental institution. Her two youngest also spent time in various institutions.
On January 1, 1960, at about 5:30 p.m., Margaret Sullavan was found unconscious in bed in a hotel room in New Haven, Connecticut. Her script, "Sweet Love Remembered", was found beside her. The script copy was open. Sullavan had been rushed to Grace New Haven Hospital, but shortly after 6.00 p.m. she was pronounced dead. No note had been found to indicate suicide, and no conclusion was reached as to whether her death was the result of a deliberate or an accidental overdose.
On January 4, 1960, after having received the toxicologistīs report on the contents of the vital organs, the coroner ruled Sullavanīs death accidental. Her death was caused by barbiturate poisoning, "but not such a massive overdose as one would expect in a suicide attempt".
Margaret Sullavanīs troubled daughter Bridget was found dead in her apartment only 8 months after her mother had died. She died at the age of 21 (of an overdose). Her son Bill committed suicide in 2008. He was 66 years old.
Sullivan's older daughter, actress Brooke Hayward, wrote Haywire, a best-selling memoir about her family. which was made into a television movie starring Lee Remick.
Quotations
- "Most actors are basically neurotic people. Terribly, terribly unhappy. That's one of the reasons they become actors. Nobody well adjusted would ever want to expose himself or herself to a large group of strangers. Think of it. Insanity! Generally, by their very nature - that is if they're at all dedicated - actors do not make good parents. They are altogether egotistical and selfish. The better the actor - and I hate to say it, the bigger the star - why, the more that seems to be true. Honestly, I don't think I've ever known one - not one! - star who was successfully able to combine a career and family life." - Margaret Sullavan
"Itīs my nature to go around in high spirits most of the time and then to collapse". - Margaret Sullavan
"She was not an easy woman to categorize or to explain. If Iīve ever known anyone in my life, man or woman, who was unique, it was she. There was nobody like her before or since. Never will be. In every way. In talent, in looks, in character, in temperament. Everything. There sure wasnīt anybody who didnīt fall under her spell." - Henry Fonda about Margaret Sullavan
"Youīll never learn to act in Hollywood. Not in a thousand years". - Margaret Sullavan
Filmography
Bibliography
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