Oscar Profile #412: Brandon De Wilde

Born April 9, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York, Brandon De Wilde was the only son of Dutch immigrants. His father was actor and Broadway stage manager Frederic de Wilde (1914-1980) and his mother Eugenia (1915-1987) was a part-time actress.

Frederic De Wilde was the stage manager for 1950’s The Member of the Wedding which was having trouble finding a child actor for the third starring role alongside Julie Harris and Ethel Waters. A friend of his suggested young Brandon for the part which his father reluctantly allowed him to audition for. He was hired on the spot. Catapulted to a national phenomenon as a child prodigy at the age of seven, he won the prestigious Donaldson Award for his performance. The Donaldson Awards were the preeminent Broadway theatrical award begun in 1944 but ending in 1955 due to competition from the Tonys which began handing out awards in 1947.

The young actor next starred opposite Helen Hayes 1952’s Mrs. McThing before repeating his legendary stage performance in Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 film of The Member of the Wedding with Harris and Waters to equal acclaim. He followed that with an even more legendary performance as the young boy in George Stevens’ 1953 film, Shane for which he was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor at the age of 11, the youngest performer nominated since Jackie Cooper who was 9 when nominated for Skippy.

De Wilde starred in the popular TV series, Jamie from 1953-1954 which was not renewed due to a contract dispute. Alternating TV and stage appearances with an occasional film, he starred in 1956’s Good-bye, My Lady opposite Walter Brennan and co-starred in 1957’s Night Passage with James Stewart and Audie Murphy. He played his first mature role as a teenage father-to-be in 1959’s Blue Denim opposite Carol Lynley, turning 17 during the film’s production.

Amidst much TV work, De Wilde distinguished himself in three 1960s films, 1962’s All Fall Down as the younger brother of Warren Beatty, 1963’s Hud as Paul Newman’s nephew, and 1965’s In Harm’s Way as John Wayne’s son.

Married in 1963 to Susan Maw with whom he had a son, Jesse, the couple was divorced in 1969. He married second wife Janice Gero in early 1972 when he was appearing in a touring production of Butterflies Are Free opposite Maureen O’Sullivan. The production ended in Denver on July 1, 1972.

On July 6, 1972, De Wilde had been driving to visit his new wife in a Denver hospital when he lost control of his camper van, hit a guardrail in Denver suburb Lakewood and crashed into a parked construction truck on the other side of the road, causing the camper to roll onto its side, pinning him in the wreckage of his vehicle for a while before being taken to St. Anthony Hospital where he died of multiple injuries that evening. He had not been wearing a seatbelt.

Brandon De Wilde was just 30 years old.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING (1952), directed by Fred Zinnemann

De Wilde repeated his triumphant Broadway role opposite Julie Harris and Ethel Waters in the film version, again opposite Harris and Waters. De Wilde aced his audition for the stage production by reciting not only his lines in a key scene, but those of Waters as well. 27-year-old Harris was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of the precocious 12-year-old girl cared for by family maid Waters along with her equally precocious 7-year-old cousin De Wilde was not only nominated for a Golden Globe for his haunting performance, won a Special Award for Best Juvenile Performance.

SHANE (1953), directed by George Stevens

Lightning struck twice for young De Wilde who became the youngest actor nominated for an Oscar since Jackie Cooper as the impressionable son of homesteaders Van Heflin and Jean Arthur who becomes attached to his father’s helper, weary gunfighter Alan Ladd in the title role of this western classic. The film’s final moving scene impressed everyone working on the film except De Wilde who kept crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue as Ladd said his goodbyes until Ladd threatened to hit him with a brick. It was only then that Ladd was able to do a complete take prompting De Wilde’s iconic “Shane. Shane. Come back!”

BLUE DENIM (1959), directed by Phillip Dunne

In many ways an artifact of its time, but still an affecting slice-of-life drama about awkward teenagers played by Carol Lynley and De Wilde who both turned 17 during the making of the film. Lynley had played the role of the motherless girl who becomes pregnant by her first boyfriend in the 1958 Broadway production. De Wilde, who was dating Lynley in real life, took over the male lead from Burt Brinkerhoff. Warren Berlinger, who was five years older, reprised his Broadway role as the boy’s best friend and MacDonald Carey and Marsha Hunt took over from Chester Morris and June Walker as the boy’s parents.

HUD (1963), directed by Martin Ritt

De Wilde was the only one of the film’s four stars who was not nominated for an Oscar for his sensitive portrayal of Paul Newman’s nephew and Melvyn Douglas’s grandson who is looked after by housekeeper Patricia Neal. Neal won the Best Actress award for her marvelous, albeit short 21-minute performance, the shortest on record. Newman lost Best Actor to Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field and Douglas, who was filming in Japan won for Best Supporting Actor, his award accepted by a beaming De Wilde who had been unaware of his own nomination ten years earlier because his parents kept the new from him for several years.

IN HARM’S WAY (1965), directed by Otto Preminger

Preminger’s epic war movie with a screenplay by Wendell Mayes, who also scripted the director’s adaptations of Anatomy of a Murder and Advise& Consent, was like Advise & Consent and The Cardinal, an all-star extravaganza that netted Patricia Neal a BAFTA for her portrayal of a nurse in love with John Wayne whose estranged son (De Wilde) is dating her roommate (Jill Haworth). As if the background of World War II in the Pacific weren’t enough, marital infidelity, rape and murder are also key plot points in the film co-starring Kirk Douglas, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss and Dana Andrews.