Beloved Actress Dies at 98

Ann Blyth, the glamorous Golden Age actress who became unforgettable as Joan Crawford’s spoiled and vicious daughter in the classic film Mildred Pierce, has died. She was 98.

Blyth died Wednesday, according to KABC’s George Pennachio, closing the curtain on one of the last surviving links to Hollywood’s grand studio era.

To generations of movie fans, Blyth will always be remembered as Veda Pierce, the cruel, selfish daughter who made life miserable for Crawford’s hardworking mother character in the 1945 drama Mildred Pierce. The role turned Blyth into a star and earned her an Academy Award nomination in 1946.

Crawford went on to win the Oscar for best actress for the film, which remains one of the most famous melodramas of its time.

But behind the scenes, Blyth later said there was no real-life feud with Crawford. In a Turner Classic Movies segment recorded many years later, she recalled that the two actresses got along very well. In fact, Blyth said one of the hardest moments was having to slap Crawford during a pivotal scene.

Their onscreen mother-daughter war became movie history.

Blyth’s career stretched far beyond Mildred Pierce. She appeared in the gritty prison drama Brute Force in 1947, starred opposite Mario Lanza in The Great Caruso in 1951, and later appeared with Paul Newman in The Helen Morgan Story in 1957.

Her life and career also included a shocking personal setback. In 1945, while taking a short vacation from filming Danger Signal, Blyth broke her back in a sledding accident. She spent a year and a half recovering in a back brace. Even while still using a wheelchair, Universal cast her in Brute Force opposite Burt Lancaster.

After she recovered, she returned to the screen with starring roles in Swell Guy and the film noir Killer McCoy with Mickey Rooney.

Blyth also took on complicated dramatic roles. In Another Part of the Forest, a 1948 prequel to Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, she played a younger version of Regina Hubard, the ruthless character famously brought to the screen by Bette Davis.

In Our Very Own, she played an adopted woman searching for her birth mother. In Thunder on the Hill, she portrayed a woman wrongly convicted of murder. In The Great Caruso, she played the wife of famed tenor Enrico Caruso. She also showed a lighter side in movies like Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid and Katie Did It.

In 1952, Blyth starred opposite Gregory Peck in The World in His Arms, which became her final film for Universal.

She later moved to MGM, where she appeared in several operettas, including Kismet. But by then, the lavish movie musical era was fading, and Blyth was among the stars whose careers were caught in the change.

Her final major film role came in 1957 with The Helen Morgan Story, where she played the tragic torch singer. In an unusual twist, even though Blyth had a trained singing voice, her vocals were dubbed in the movie.

Born Ann Marie Blyth in Mount Kisco, New York, she was still young when her parents separated. Her mother moved Blyth and her sister to New York City, where the future star began training for what she once thought would be a career in opera.

She studied with the San Carlo Opera Company and made her only Broadway appearance in the original production of Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine in 1941 and 1942. When the production toured in Los Angeles, Blyth caught the eye of Hollywood and was given a screen test at Universal.

She made her movie debut in 1944’s Chip Off the Block, a swing-era teen musical starring Donald O’Connor. More musical roles followed in The Merry Monahans and Babes on Swing Street, but her career exploded the next year when Warner Bros. cast her in Mildred Pierce.

After her film career slowed, Blyth focused on her family, her faith and the stage. A devout Catholic, she later appeared in musical theater productions including The Sound of Music, The King and I, Carnival, Bittersweet, South Pacific, Show Boat and A Little Night Music.

She also made occasional television appearances, including roles on Lux Video Theatre, The DuPont Show With June Allyson, The Dick Powell Theatre and Wagon Train. In 1964, she starred in the Queen of the Nile episode of The Twilight Zone. Later, she appeared on Quincy, M.E. and made her final TV appearance on Murder, She Wrote in 1985.

Blyth was married to Dr. James McNulty from 1953 until his death in 2007. The couple had five children, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

For classic movie lovers, Blyth leaves behind a legacy tied to one of Hollywood’s most unforgettable villains: the beautiful, bitter and impossible-to-please Veda Pierce.

Nearly 80 years after Mildred Pierce shocked audiences, Ann Blyth’s performance still cuts like a knife.