Oscar Profile #254: Anne Revere

Born June 25, 1903 in New York, New York, Anne Revere was a direct descendant of Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere. Her father was a stockbroker and her mother a homemaker. After graduating from Wellesley College, she enrolled in the American Laboratory School to study acting with Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boleslavsky. She made her Broadway debut in 1931 in The Great Barrington. Three years later, she went to Hollywood to reprise her stage role in the film adaptation of Double Door. She returned to Broadway to create the role of Martha Dobie in the original 1934 production of The Children’s Hour, the role played on screen by Miriam Hopkins in 1936’s These Three and Shirley MacLaine in 1961’s The Children’s Hour.

After making several more appearances on Broadway, Revere returned to Hollywood in minor roles in 1940, having married stage manager Sam Rosen in 1935. Her one shot at a major starring role opposite Spencer Tracy in The Yearling was abandoned when the film was postponed in 1941. Jane Wyman would eventually score an Oscar nomination for playing the role opposite Gregory Peck when the film was completed in 1946.

Revere received her first major notices for her screen work and her first Oscar nomination for 1943’s The Song of Bernadette in which she played Jennifer Jones’ mother. She was outstanding in three late 1944-early 1945 releases, National Velvet, The Keys of the Kingdom and The Thin Man Goes Home, winning an Oscar for playing Elizabeth Taylor and Angela Lansbury’s mother in National Velvet. She would score back-to-back acclaim for her portrayals of two more mothers in 1947’s, John Garfield’s in Body and Soul and Gregory Peck’s in Gentleman’s Agreement, receiving a third Oscar nomination for the latter.

Revere had a major role as Montgomery Clift’s mother in 1951’s A Place in the Sun, but the role was cut to ribbons after she and her husband were among 300 named as Communists in the Hollywood witch hunts of the day. The actress always maintained that the picture of an unsigned Communist Party membership card in her name was a fake, but aside from some minor television work in the 1950s she was unable to get work. She had a major comeback in 1960 in Broadway’s Toys in the Attic, winning a Tony for her portrayal of Maureen Stapleton and Jason Robards’ sister. Despite the acclaim for all three performances, the 1963 film version went to Dean Martin in Robards’ role, Geraldine Page in Stapleton’s and Wendy Hiller in Revere’s.

Toys in the Attic was Revere’s last role on Broadway. Ten years later Otto Preminger gave her a minor but important role in Tell Me That You Me, Junie Moon, after which she was able to get minor work on TV and in two films, 1970’s Macho Callhan and 1976’s Birch Interval. After three appearances in TV’s Ryan’s Hope in 1977, she called it quits.

Sam Rosen died in 1984. Anne Revere passed away on December 18, 1990 in Locust Valley, New York. She was 87.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE SONG OF BERNADETTE (1943), directed by Henry King

Revere’s portrayal of Jennifer Jones’ mother was brief but impressive. In just a few short scenes she was able to convey a strong portrait of a peasant mother, earning some of the film’s best notices. Critics and Jones herself, always credited the performances of Oscar nominated Charles Bickford as the village priest, Gladys Cooper and the doubting nun and Revere as the reasons she looked good in her role. Revere had an even more memorable role in the following year’s religious epic, The Keys of the Kingdom in which she and James Gleason played married Protestant missionaries who befriend Catholic missionary Gregory Peck.

NATIONAL VELVET (1944), directed by Clarence Brown

Elizabeth Taylor made a huge impression at the age of 12, Mickey Rooney added to his box office clout, Angela Lansbury continued her climb to stardom and Donadl Crisp gave his usual assured performance as her husband, but it was Anne Revere as Taylor and Lansbury’s former Olympic swimming medalist who was generally perceived as the film’s acting standout, eating her second Oscar nomination for her portrayal. It helped that both The Keys of the Kingdom and The Thin Man Goes Home in which she also had prominent roles, were released at the same time just as Oscar season was getting underway.

GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT (1947), directed by Elia Kazan

Revere, who never had children in real lfie, gave her most memorable performances as mothers on screen. In 1947 she had two such unforgettable roles. The first was as the disapproving mother of boxer John Garfield in Body and Soul co-starring Lilli Palmer. The second was as Gregory Peck’s approving mother in Gentleman’s Agreement in which it was made abundantly clear that Peck’s moral compass was a result of his upbringing. Her scenes with Peck and Dean Stockwell as her grandson were some of the best in a film crowded with emotional fireworks. She richly earned Oscar nomination number three.

A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951), directed by George Stevens

The role of Montgomery Clift’s mother in the second film version of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragdey was every bit as important as Lucille LaVerne’s interpretation was to the 1931 version, but after the Hollywood witch hunts of the late 1940s and early 1950s turned up a Communist Party membership card in her name, one that she always maintained was a fake, she was persona non grata in Hollywood. Although Paramount claimed that her role was cut to reduce the film’s run time, it was obvious to one and all that it was cut for political reasons, effectively ending her Hollywood career.

TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JUNDIE MOON (1970), directed by Otto Preminger

There was a lot of excitement surrounding the release of Preminger’s film, Liza Minnelli’s second film following the success of The Sterile Cuckoo. Although the film centered around the performances of Minnelli, Ken Howard and Robert Moore as three friends who meet in a hospital, Preminger surrounded them with lots of well-known character actors in supporting roles including James Coco, Kay Thompson, Ben Piazza, Leonard Frey, James Beard and Revere. Alas, it wasn’t much of a part and didn’t result in a sustained renewal of her career, but film buffs rejoiced that she was at last back on the screen where she undoubtedly belonged.