Maggie McNamara

Maggie McNamara ( born June 18, 1928 in New York, New York; † ibid February 18, 1978; actually Marguerite McNamara ) was an American actress and fashion model.

Biography

Maggie McNamara was born in 1928 in New York as Marguerite McNamara and grew up with a brother and two sisters. She attended St. Catherine of Genoa School in her hometown and later a textile school. Even as a young McNamara began to work as a photo model. Twice she appeared on the cover page of the U.S. Life magazine and later began taking acting lessons. At the age of 23 years, McNamara was discovered by the Austrian-American film and theater director Otto Preminger. Preminger gave the charismatic, dark-haired actress to successfully by Barbara Bel Geddes created on Broadway Part of Patty O'Neill in the National Company production of F. Hugh Herbert's The Moon Is Blue in Chicago. In the comedy McNamara was occupied for 18 months in the lead role of an attractive young woman who, despite advances two aging playboys intends to go as a virgin until marriage.

In February 1952 McNamara made ​​her debut on Broadway in The King of Friday's Men, which earned her praise from critics. Brook Atkinson, drama critic of the New York Times, ruled over them, it was ( original sound: "remarkably pretty and Has a gift for acting. " ) " Remarkably beautiful and has talent for acting. ". In 1953, Maggie McNamara for the eponymous film version of The Moon Is Blue (English title clouds are everywhere) committed. She signed a contract with the film studio 20th Century Fox and acted with William Holden and David Niven. The controversial film material by Otto Preminger directed, challenged the Hays code and fueled the anger of the U.S. censors, including the Legion of Decency was founded in 1933. Nevertheless, clouds are published anywhere in the U.S., where he could be placed sixteen weeks long among the ten best films of the trade magazine Variety.

Preminger Maggie McNamara was chosen because she brought in his opinion, the innocent, virginal look for the film. When Barbara Bel Geddes, who played the role to perfection on Broadway, he had the fear that they would not act young enough before the camera. In fact, McNamara received at the Academy Awards 1954 nomination for Best Actress, but the Briton Audrey Hepburn was beaten ( A heart and a crown). A year later she was rewarded for her first film role with a nomination for the British Film Academy Award for Best Young Actress.

After clouds are everywhere but McNamara should only participate in three other films. In Otto Preminger's German-language film version of clouds are everywhere, The Virgin on the Roof (1953 ) with Hardy Krüger and Johanna Matz in the lead roles, she acted with William Holden in small guest roles as a tourist couple. More successful was Jean Negulescos Three Coins in the Fountain (1954 ), three U.S. women who dream of the great love in distant Rome. The romantic comedy, in which Louis Jourdan, Dorothy McGuire and Jean Peters were her co-star, won an Oscar nomination for best film. At the same time it was the first film production, which was shot outside the Hollywood studios on location on location in Cinemascope format.

After Philip Dunne's biopic king of the actor (1955 ) with Richard Burton left Maggie McNamara Hollywood. Her marriage to screenwriter David Swift (1919-2001) had failed, after he had cheated on her. McNamara had subsequently suffered a nervous breakdown. More than seven years after their last movie you saw her former mentor and sponsor Otto Preminger them again. Had McNamara earlier made ​​a balanced and happy impression on him, they had now changed, as he should hold later in his autobiography. In this he led them next to Marilyn Monroe and Gene Tierney as "another actress ", which would have suffered greatly after their rise to stardom Preminger helped McNamara 1963 another film role in The Cardinal. A year earlier she had appeared in a supporting role in the Broadway play Step on a Crack. However, a new career in the cinema did not arise, despite a Preminger's help. After sporadic appearances on U.S. television, so among other things in episodes of the television series The Twilight Zone (1963 ), The Greatest Show on Earth and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ( both 1964), McNamara disappeared mid-1960s from the television screen, the silver screen and the theater stage.

Maggie McNamara hired himself after her acting career as a typist at an insurance company. Divorced from her husband, David Swift, she took in 1978 at the age of forty-nine years, with an overdose of sleeping pills life. She left behind a suicide note. Friends reported that McNamara had long suffered from severe depression. The actress, who is often compared with Leslie Caron or Audrey Hepburn, was buried in the Saint Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale, on Long Iceland.

Filmography

Plays ( selection)

Awards

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