1941 – Teresa Wright
The Little Foxes
I have always been a fan of Teresa Wright, ever since the first time I saw her on screen in 1942’s Mrs. Miniver. She was young and fresh-faced, and an incredible actress. She had a natural innocence in her appearance that not many actresses had and yet there was also a strength that was undeniable. She knew how to turn on the emotion, but she was never over-the-top. She seemed very at ease in front of the camera.
But I have to say, despite all that, and though I actually liked her performance in this movie, I think I was a little disappointed with her here. Her character was a little one-note. As Alexandra “Zannie” Giddons, the daughter of the callous and manipulative Regina, she was sweet and honest, though you could see the little ways in which she easily took after her mother. This was her from the first moment she appeared on the screen. She was petulant and immature in her innocence, and so she always had a look of self-righteous irritation on her face. It was a very good acting choice, but the problem is that she stayed pretty much the same in just about every other scene in which she appeared, and it eventually got old.
But you see, I know Wright was a better actress than that. It was the script that failed the actress, not the other way around. Of course, I know I’m over-simplifying her character a bit, and that there were several layers to her character. These came out in her relationships with her father and her aunt Birdie. But those scenes were too few and too brief. Then, she was sympathetic and sweet. Unfortunately for Wright, they sometimes required the same expressions of immaturity and confusion as did the scenes of innocent petulance.
But it was the final scene that really sticks out in my mind. It was there that Wright’s exceptional skills as an actress began to shine. She saw just how evil her mother really was, confronted her, and left her. Just enough of the innocence fell away and she saw her mother with a contempt born of experience. The flicker of a fire began to bloom in Zannie’s eyes as she stood up to Regina and left her alone with all her ill-gotten gains. That was where she earned her Oscar nomination.