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Anne Baxter (May 7, 1923 –
December 12, 1985) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.
Baxter screen-tested for the role of
Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca, but lost out to Joan Fontaine because director
Alfred Hitchcock considered her "too young" for the role. The strength of
that first foray into movie acting secured the then sixteen-year-old
Baxter a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Her first movie role
was in 20 Mule Team in 1940. She was chosen by director Orson Welles to
appear in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), based on the novel by Booth
Tarkington. Baxter co-starred with Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney in 1946's
The Razor's Edge, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actress.
In 1950, she was chosen to co-star in All About Eve, largely because of a
resemblance to Claudette Colbert, who had initially been chosen to co-star
in the film. Baxter received a nomination for Best Actress for the title
role of Eve Harrington. Later during that decade, Baxter also continued to
act in professional theater. According to a program from the production,
Baxter appeared on Broadway in 1953 opposite Tyrone Power in Charles
Laughton's John Brown's Body, a play based upon the narrative poem by
Stephen Vincent Benét (though the Internet Broadway Database states that
Power's co-star was Judith Anderson). In 1953 she appeared opposite
Montgomery Clift in Alfred Hitchcock's I Confess.
Baxter is also remembered for her compelling role as
the Egyptian princess Nefertiri opposite Charlton Heston's portrayal of
Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's award winning The Ten Commandments (1956).
Baxter appeared regularly on television in the 1960s. For example, she did
a stint as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday
Night CBS-TV program. She also starred as the special guest villain "Zelda
the Great" in two episodes of the 60s superhero show Batman. She also
appeared as the special guest villain "Olga, Queen of the Cossacks"
opposite Vincent Price's "Egghead" in three episodes of the show's third
season.
Baxter appeared again on Broadway during the 1970s, in Applause, the
musical version of All About Eve, but this time in the "Margo Channing"
role played by Bette Davis in the film (she was replacing Lauren Bacall,
who won a Tony Award in the role). Bette Davis tells, in one of her
biographies, of attending one such performance by Baxter, to their mutual
delight.
In the 1970s, Baxter was a frequent guest and stand-in host on the popular
daytime TV talk-fest The Mike Douglas Show, since Baxter and host Mike
Douglas were friends. She portrayed a homicidal movie star on an episode
of Columbo called
Requiem for a Fallen Star.
In 1983, the actress starred in the television series Hotel, replacing
Bette Davis in the cast after Davis took ill. Baxter has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6741 Hollywood Blvd. |