Thelma Ritter, Grace Kelly, James Stewart in Rear Window
Actress Thelma Ritter, who was born on Feb. 14, 1905, in Brooklyn, would have turned 101 years old today. Her film career began rather late — she was 42 when she made her film debut in a small role in The Miracle on 34th Street — but in a few years she was to become one of the best-known actresses in Hollywood, working mostly at 20th Century Fox.
Though never a star big enough to carry her own films, Ritter was what is referred to as a "star supporting player." She was honored with star billing every now and then, though her roles were subordinate to those of other players from whom she often stole both the films and the reviews. (As far as I’m concerned, James Stewart and Grace Kelly don’t exist whenever Ritter is on screen in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.)
My favorite Thelma Ritter performance is her tragicomic informer in Samuel Fuller’s 1953 spy thriller Pickup on South Street. Ritter was nominated for a best supporting actress Academy Award for that role (but lost to Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity), and although she was never to win an Oscar she still holds the record for the most nominations in the supporting categories: six in all. (Walter Brennan comes in second place, with four nominations of which he — undeservedly, I might add — won three.)
Thelma Ritter’s six Oscar nominations were for All About Eve (1950), The Mating Season (1951), With a Song in My Heart (1952), Pickup on South Street (1953), Pillow Talk (1959), and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).
She died of a heart attack on Feb. 4, 1969, ten days before her 64th birthday.