Biography
At the tender age of eight, Thelma Ritter was regaling the students and faculty of Brooklyn's Public School 77 with her recitals of such monologues as "Mr. Brown Gets His Haircut" and "The Story of Cremona". After appearing in high school plays and stock companies, Ritter was trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Throughout the Depression years, she and her actor husband Joe Moran did everything short of robbing banks to support themselves; when vaudeville and stage assignments dried up, they entered slogan and jingle contests. Moran forsook performing to become an actor's agent in the mid-1930s, while Ritter also briefly gave up acting to raise a family. She started working professionally again in 1940 as a radio performer. In 1946, director
George Seaton, an old friend of Ritter, offered her a bit role in the upcoming New York-lensed Miracle on 34th Street. Ritter's single scene as a weary Yuletide shopper went over so well that 20th Century-Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck insisted that the actress' role be expanded. After Ritter garnered good notices for her unbilled
Miracle role, Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote a part specifically for her in his 1948 film
A Letter to Three Wives (1949). She was afforded screen billing for the first time in 1949's
City Across the River. During the first few years of her 20th Century-Fox contract, Ritter was Oscar-nominated for her performance as
Bette Davis' acerbic maid in
All About Eve, and for her portrayal of upwardly mobile
John Lund's just-folks mother in
The Mating Season (1951). In all, the actress would receive five nominations -- the other three were for
With a Song in My Heart (1952),
Pickup on South Street (1953) and
Pillow Talk (1959) -- though she never won the gold statuette. Ritter finally received star billing in the comedy/drama
The Model and the Marriage Broker (1952), in which she assuages her own loneliness by finding suitable mates for others. After a showcase part as
James Stewart's nurse in Hitchcock's
Rear Window (1954), Ritter made do with standard film supporting parts and starring roles on TV. In 1957, Ritter appeared as waterfront barfly Marthy in the Broadway musical New Girl in Town, a bowdlerization of
Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Ritter interrupted her still-thriving screen career in 1965 for another Broadway appearance in
James Kirkwood's UTBU. Shortly after a 1968 guest appearance on TV's The Jerry Lewis Show, Ritter suffered a heart attack which would ultimately prove fatal; the actress' last screen appearance, like her first, was a cameo role in a
George Seaton-directed comedy, What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide