The Actress
| The Actress | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | George Cukor |
| Produced by | Lawrence Weingarten |
| Written by | Ruth Gordon |
| Starring |
Spencer Tracy Jean Simmons Teresa Wright Anthony Perkins |
| Music by | Bronisław Kaper |
| Cinematography | Harold Rosson |
| Edited by | George Boemler |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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Running time
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90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,424,000 |
| Box office | $914,000 |
The Actress is an 1953 American comedy-drama film based on Ruth Gordon's autobiographical play Years Ago. Gordon herself wrote the screenplay. The film was directed by George Cukor and stars Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, Teresa Wright, and Anthony Perkins in his film debut.
The film basically is a series of vignettes involving Ruth, her parents, her best friends, and the college boy romantically pursuing her. Although Gordon did in fact become an accomplished Academy Award-winning actress and a successful writer, the film ends without the audience seeing Gordon achieve her goals.
The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Black-and-White Costume Design. Tracy won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Drama and was nominated for a BAFTA as Best Foreign Actor. Simmons was named Best Actress by the National Board of Review, and Gordon's screenplay was nominated Best Written American Comedy by the Writers Guild of America, despite being far more dramatic than comedic.
In 1913 Wollaston, Massachusetts, teenage student Ruth Gordon Jones (Jean Simmons) dreams of a theatrical career after becoming mesmerized by a performance of The Pink Lady in a Boston theater. Encouraged to pursue her dream by real-life leading lady Hazel Dawn (Kay Williams) in response to a fan letter she sent her, Ruth schemes to drop out of school and move to New York City, unbeknownst to her father, Clinton Jones (Spencer Tracy), a former seaman now working at a menial factory job, who wants her to continue her education and become a physical education instructor instead. As a young man, Clinton's bad family situation forced him to drop out of school and run away to sea, so he is dismayed that his daughter rejects the educational opportunities he would have liked for himself. In addition to overcoming her father's objections, Ruth must also deal with her feelings for Fred Whitmarsh (Anthony Perkins), a handsome Harvard University student who falls in love with her and eventually proposes marriage.
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Wikipedia