Biography
A radio singer at age 5, American actress Ann Blyth studied for an operatic career, making her debut in this endeavor with the San Carlo Opera Company. In 1943, at age 15, Ann was playing
Paul Lukas' daughter in the Broadway production Watch on the Rhine; two years later she was under contract to Universal studios as the latest in that company's "threats" against their recalcitrant resident soprano
Deanna Durbin. Blyth wasn't given anything close to a chance to show her talents until she was cast as
Joan Crawford's hateful daughter Veda in
Mildred Pierce (1945). For this performance, which ran the gamut from thinly veiled insults addressed at Crawford to the murder of her mother's paramour (Zachary Scott), she was nominated for an Academy Award. After recovering from a back injury, Blyth worked ceaselessly in films, alternating between sappily sweet parts in such fluff as
Free for All (1949) and Sally and St. Anne (1951) and tougher assignments like the white-hot truculence expended in her portrayal of Regina Hubbard in
Another Part of the Forest (1948). Perhaps the most off-kilter of her starring roles was in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948) wherein she played the female half of the title, spending much of the film in a state of (implied) toplessness. In 1954, she was finally permitted to display her beautifully trained voice in such musicals as
The Student Prince (1954),
Rose Marie (1955) and
Kismet (1956). But when called upon to play a real-life songstress in
The Helen Morgan Story (1957), she was dubbed by Gogi Grant!
Helen Morgan Story was Blyth's final film role; she spent the rest of her career on stage, TV and in concert - and, in the late 1970s, she showed up as the surprisingly domesticated spokesperson for Hostess Cupcakes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide