Betsy Blair
Betsy Blair ( born December 11, 1923 as Elizabeth Winifred Boger in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, † March 13, 2009 in London, England ) was an American actress. Particular success she had with her portrayal of unhappy women in a joyless environment, such as in Out of the darkness of the forest (1948 ) or in the Oscar - winning film Marty ( 1955).
Life
Betsy Blair, daughter of a teacher and an insurance broker, has performed as a dancer at the age of eight years. From the age of twelve, she worked as a model for the John Robert Powers agency. With 15 years of Blair made her high school graduation. In order to bridge the time until the university, she went on the advice of the mother continued working as a dancer after. 1940 Blair appeared in Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe, a nightclub in Times Square in New York City, Kelly worked at the genes as a choreographer. A short time later she married Kelly at the age of 17 years. Blair has appeared in various productions on Broadway, including The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and William Shakespeare's Richard II, the end of the 1940s she received first film roles, including in Henry Levin's The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947 ) and Michael Gordon from the Dark of the forest (1948 ) in which she starred alongside such well-known fellow actors as Fredric March and Rosalind Russell.
Blair's film career came in the 1950s to a halt when it was put on the black list for several years during the McCarthy era. Even as a 16 -year-old actress had attended a weekly Marxist study group in New York and joined in later years, left-wing organizations such as the Joint Anti- Fascist Refugee Committee, the Sleepy Lagoon Committee and the Civil Rights Congress. Your main female role in Delbert Mann's Oscar - winner film Marty (1955 ) alongside Ernest Borgnine, for which she was later awarded the British Film Academy Award and an Oscar nomination, it would therefore have almost lost.
After the divorce of Kelly 1957 she moved to Europe. There she continued her film career continued, including Main Street ( 1956) by Juan Antonio Bardem or The Scream ( 1957) ( Il grido ) by Michelangelo Antonioni. After the wedding, with Karel Reisz film director in 1963, she worked only sporadically as an actress. From the union a daughter emerged. In the late 1970s, Blair was at London's Central School of Speech and Drama to train as a speech therapist and practiced this profession also. In 2003, she published with success under the title The Memory of All That: Love and Politics in New York, Hollywood, Paris and her autobiography. At the age of 85 years Blair died 2009 from cancer.