Thelma Ritter
Birthday:
Birthplace:
Not Available
At the tender age of eight, Thelma Ritter was regaling the students and faculty of Brooklyn's Public School 77 with her recitals of such monologues as "Mr. Brown Gets His Haircut" and "The Story of Cremona". After appearing in high school plays and stock companies, Ritter was trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Throughout the Depression years, she and her actor husband Joe Moran did everything short of robbing banks to support themselves; when vaudeville and stage assignments dried up, they entered slogan and jingle contests. Moran forsook performing to become an actor's agent in the mid-1930s, while Ritter also briefly gave up acting to raise a family. She started working professionally again in 1940 as a radio performer. In 1946, director George Seaton, an old friend of Ritter, offered her a bit role in the upcoming New York-lensed Miracle on 34th Street. Ritter's single scene as a weary Yuletide shopper went over so well that 20th Century-Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck insisted that the actress' role be expanded. After Ritter garnered good notices for her unbilled Miracle role, Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote a part specifically for her in his 1948 film A Letter to Three Wives (1949). She was afforded screen billing for the first time in 1949's City Across the River. During the first few years of her 20th Century-Fox contract, Ritter was Oscar-nominated for her performance as Bette Davis' acerbic maid in All About Eve, and for her portrayal of upwardly mobile John Lund's just-folks mother in The Mating Season (1951). In all, the actress would receive five nominations -- the other three were for With a Song in My Heart (1952), Pickup on South Street (1953) and Pillow Talk (1959) -- though she never won the gold statuette. Ritter finally received star billing in the comedy/drama The Model and the Marriage Broker (1952), in which she assuages her own loneliness by finding suitable mates for others. After a showcase part as James Stewart's nurse in Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), Ritter made do with standard film supporting parts and starring roles on TV. In 1957, Ritter appeared as waterfront barfly Marthy in the Broadway musical New Girl in Town, a bowdlerization of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Ritter interrupted her still-thriving screen career in 1965 for another Broadway appearance in James Kirkwood's UTBU. Shortly after a 1968 guest appearance on TV's The Jerry Lewis Show, Ritter suffered a heart attack which would ultimately prove fatal; the actress' last screen appearance, like her first, was a cameo role in a George Seaton-directed comedy, What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968). Ritter's daughter, Monica Moran, also pursued an acting career from the 1940s through the 1970s.
Highest Rated Movies
Filmography
MOVIES
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | BOX OFFICE | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet | What's So Bad About Feeling Good? |
|
— | 1968 |
88% | The Incident |
|
— | 1967 |
No Score Yet | Boeing (707) Boeing (707) |
|
— | 1965 |
No Score Yet | Move Over Darling |
|
— | 1963 |
14% | A New Kind of Love |
|
— | 1963 |
86% | How the West Was Won |
|
— | 1963 |
91% | Birdman of Alcatraz |
|
— | 1962 |
No Score Yet | The Second Time Around |
|
— | 1961 |
97% | The Misfits |
|
— | 1961 |
93% | Pillow Talk |
|
— | 1959 |
67% | A Hole in the Head |
|
— | 1959 |
No Score Yet | The Proud and Profane |
|
— | 1956 |
No Score Yet | Lucy Gallant |
|
— | 1955 |
No Score Yet | Daddy Long Legs |
|
— | 1955 |
98% | Rear Window |
|
— | 1954 |
No Score Yet | The Farmer Takes a Wife |
|
— | 1953 |
92% | Pickup on South Street |
|
— | 1953 |
91% | Titanic |
|
— | 1953 |
67% | With a Song in My Heart |
|
— | 1952 |
No Score Yet | As Young as You Feel |
|
— | 1951 |
No Score Yet | The Mating Season |
|
— | 1951 |
No Score Yet | The Model and the Marriage Broker |
|
— | 1951 |
No Score Yet | Perfect Strangers |
|
— | 1950 |
99% | All About Eve |
|
— | 1950 |
No Score Yet | City Across the River |
|
— | 1949 |
95% | A Letter to Three Wives |
|
— | 1949 |
No Score Yet | Father Was a Fullback |
|
— | 1949 |
96% | Miracle on 34th Street |
|
— | 1947 |
TV
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet |
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
1955-1962
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Quotes from Thelma Ritter's Characters
Stella the nurse: | He better get that trunk out of there before it starts to leak. |
Birdie Coonan: | Everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her rear. |
Margo Channing: | You bought the new girdles a size smaller, I can feel it. |
Birdie Coonan: | Something maybe grew a size larger. |
Margo Channing: | When we get home you're going to get into one of these girdles and *act* for two and a half hours. |
Birdie Coonan: | I couldn't get into *the girdle* in two and a half hours. |
Stella the nurse: | I can hear you now: "Get out of my life, you wonderful woman. You're too good for me." |
Stella the nurse: | I can hear you now, 'Get out of my life, you wonderful woman. You're too good for me.' |
Stella the nurse: | Intelligence. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence. |
Birdie Coonan: | What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end. |
Birdie Coonan: | What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end. |
Stella the nurse: | Oh, no thanks - I don't want any part of her. |
Stella the nurse: | Oh, no thanks - I don't want any part of her. |