Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Sullavan
1940 publicity photo
Born	Margaret Brooke Sullavan (1909-05-16)May 16, 1909 Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.
Died	January 1, 1960(1960-01-01) (aged 50) New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Cause of death	Barbiturate overdose
Resting place	Saint Mary's Whitechapel Episcopal Churchyard
Nationality	American
Education	Chatham Episcopal Institute
Occupation	Actress, Singer
Years active	1929–1960
Spouse(s)	Henry Fonda (m. 1931; div. 1933) William Wyler (m. 1934; div. 1936) Leland Hayward (m. 1936; div. 1947) Kenneth Wagg (m. 1950–60)
Children	Brooke Hayward Bridget Hayward Bill Hayward

Margaret Brooke Sullavan (May 16, 1909 – January 1, 1960) was an American actress of stage and film.

Sullavan began her career onstage in 1929. 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. Sullavan preferred working on the stage and made only 16 movies, four of which were opposite James Stewart in a popular partnership that includes The Mortal Storm. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Three Comrades (1938). She retired from the screen in the early 1940s, but returned in 1950 to make her last movie, No Sad Songs for Me, in which she played a woman who was dying of cancer. For the rest of her career she would only appear on the stage.

Sullavan experienced increasing hearing problems, depression, and mental frailty in the 1950s. She died of an overdose of barbiturates, which was ruled accidental, on January 1, 1960 at the age of 50.

Sullavan was born in Norfolk, Virginia, the daughter of a wealthy , Cornelius Sullavan, and his wife, Garland Brooke. The first years of her 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 was unable to socialize with other children until the age of six. After her recovery she emerged as an adventurous and tomboyish child who preferred playing with the children from the poorer neighborhood, much to the disapproval 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 salutary 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 Copley 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.