Born February 14, 1902 in Brooklyn, New York, Thelma Ritter was a hard-working, albeit obscure stage and radio actress whose movie breakthrough came in her first film, in an unbilled bit role in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street. Her portrayal of a mother who is sent to Gimbels by Macy’s Santa made such an impression on producer Daryl F. Zanuck that he ordered an expansion of her part. Unbilled in her next films, as a receptionist in 1948’s Call Northside 777 and as Connie Gilchrist’s card playing partner in 1949’s A Letter to Three Wives she finally received billing and her first Oscar nomination as Bette Davis’ wisecracking dresser/maid/companion in 1950’s All About Eve.

Fourth billed in 1951’s The Mating Season, her self-sacrificing mother of the groom was the film’s dominant character, appearing in every scene in Mitchell Leisen’s classic screwball comedy. It brought her a second Oscar nomination in a year in which she co-starred in two other memorable comedies, As Young As You Feel and The Model and the Marriage-Broker.

Her portrayal of the fictional no-nonsense nurse who bullies Susan Hayward as singer Jane Froman in her recuperation from a devastating plane crash in 1952’s With a Song in My Heart brought her a third consecutive Oscar nomination. She received a fourth for the following year’s Pickup on South Street, a rare film noir to receive an acting nomination. She was the unsinkable Molly Brown in the same year’s Titanic in support of Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb.

Ritter’s best remembered role was as James Stewart’s wisecracking (what else?) nurse in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 classic, Rear Window. Oddly, it failed to earn her a fifth consecutive Oscar nomination.

Fred Astaire’s wisecracking secretary in 1955’s Daddy Long Legs and Deborah Kerr’s friend in The Proud and Profane were other memorable 1950s roles as were her Emmy nominated performance in the TV version of The Catered Affair and her Tony winning role in New Girl in Town, the musical version of Anna Christie in which she played Marie Dressler’s old screen role opposite Gwen Verdon in Greta Garbo’s.

Ritter received additional Oscar nominations for 1959’s Pillow Talk as Doris Day’s inebriated maid and 1962’s Birdman of Alcatraz in a rare dramatic role as Burt Lancaster’s stern mother.

She had memorable roles as the mother who hires Kirk Douglas to find husbands for her daughters in 1963’s For Love or Money; Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis’ wisecracking housekeeper in 1965’s Boeing Boeing and as one of the passengers aboard a hostage held subway car in 1967’s The Incident.

Her last part was a minor role in 1968’s What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? , directed by George Seaton who directed her in her first, Miracle on 3th Street.

Thelma Ritter suffered a heart attack and died nine days before her 67th birthday on February 5, 1969.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The classic comedy-drama about an aging Broadway star and the self-serving ingénue who uses her received an unprecedented fourteen Oscar nominations including one for Ritter who is a hoot as Bette Davis’ worldly wise dresser/maid/companion who is the first to size up Anne Baxter’s phony backstory with the classic comment, “what a story, everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her behind.”

Although the film remains a masterpiece, a bit of life goes out of it after Ritter disappears from the film about halfway through.

THE MATING SEASON (1951), directed by Mitchell Leisen

Ritter is fourth billed in this classic screwball comedy in which she plays the owner of a hamburger stand who poses as a maid in her new daughter-in-law’s home. John Lund is the social climbing son and Gene Tierney his unsuspecting upper middle-class bride. Third-billed Miriam Hopkins plays Tierney’s snooty mother. Larry Keating is a delight as Lund’s boss who takes a liking to Ritter.

This is the kind of film that can only work with superb no-nonsense character actress like a Marie Dressler or a May Robson in control and Ritter more than lives up to the precedent set by those extraordinary ladies so many years before.

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953), directed by Samuel Fuller

Having established herself as the premier character comedy actress of her day, Ritter turned to drama with devastating effect as a police informant who becomes involved with pickpocket Richard Widmark and the message he unwittingly lifts from enemy agents and thus becomes the target of Communist spies in Fuller’s white knuckle suspense thriller.

Not to give away plot points but Ritter in her death scene provides one of the most heartbreaking, harrowing performances ever given by any actor in screen history.

REAR WINDOW (1954), directed by Alfred Hitchcock

James Stewart is a voyeur, Grace Kelly a fashion plate and Ritter the wisecracking nurse who attends to the incapacitated Stewart in-between, and sometimes during, his spying bouts.

It’s difficult to say exactly what Ritter does in this film, but even in a carefully controlled Hitchcock film she manages to seemingly effortlessly steal scene after scene.

BOEING BOEING (1968), directed by John Rich

Tony Curtis is a lecherous playboy who juggles airline stewardesses in his Paris apartment, Jerry Lewis, in his first non-jerk role, is his perplexed friend and Ritter is the housekeeper who has to keep the women from bumping into one another in the film version of the hit Broadway version of the French farce.

Nobody did wisecracking sardonic characters better than Ritter, and here she reaches the zenith of those types of roles. It earned Ritter a Golden Globe nomination in the role which was played by Christine Baranski in the 2008 Broadway revival.

THELMA RITTER AND OSCAR

• All About Eve (1950) – nominated Best Supporting Actress
• The Mating Season (1951) – nominated Best Supporting Actress
• With a Song in My Heart (1952) – nominated Best Supporting Actress
• Pickup on South Street (1953) – nominated Best Supporting Actress
• Pillow Talk (1959) – nominated Best Supporting Actress
• Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) – nominated Best Supporting Actress