Years active 1937-1960 Name Ann Richards | Role Actress | |
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Full Name Shirley Ann Richards Children Mark Angelo, Christopher Angelo, Juliet Angelo Grandchildren Lindsay Angelo, Kelly Angelo Movies Sorry - Wrong Number, Love Letters, An American Romance, Badman's Territory, Lost Honeymoon Similar People Ken G Hall, Anatole Litvak, Frank Harvey, William Dieterle, Tim Whelan | ||
Holland taylor on meeting ann richards
Ann Richards (13 December 1917 – 25 August 2006) was an Australian actress and author, who achieved notability in a series of 1930s Australian films for Ken G. Hall as Shirley Ann Richards before moving to the United States, where she continued her career as a film actress, mainly as an MGM starlet. Her best known performances were in It Isn't Done (1937), Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938), An American Romance (1944), and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). In the 1930s, she was the only Australian actor under a long-term contract to a film studio, Cinesound Productions. She subsequently became a lecturer and poet.
Contents
- Holland taylor on meeting ann richards
- The ann richards play starring holland taylor smart girls w amy poehler
- Early life
- Cinesound
- American film career
- Retirement
- Richards and Australia
- Appraisal
- Filmography
- References
The ann richards play starring holland taylor smart girls w amy poehler
Early life
She was born Shirley Ann Richards in Sydney, Australia, to an American father and New Zealand mother, and was raised in Mosman and educated at Ascham School Edgecliff. Richards began acting on stage in amateur productions for the Sydney Players Club and was working as a receptionist at the photographic students of Russell Roberts.
Cinesound
She was spotted in an amateur theatre production when selected for Cinesound Productions' Talent School, where she worked for six months. This led to her casting as Cecil Kellaway's daughter in It Isn't Done (1937) for director Ken G. Hall at Cinesound Productions.
Richards was a success with the public and critics, and Stuart F. Doyle, head of Cinesound, ordered Hall to put her under long-term contract so she would not be poached by a rival filmmaker such as F. W. Thring or Charles Chauvell. Hall later said, "I think that Shirley Ann would be the only artist before or since to be placed under term contract by an Australian film company." The contract was for 12 months with options.
"In Shirley Ann Richards I believe we have the ideal ingenue", said Hall at the time. "She is young, intelligent, photographs splendidly, and above all, responds quickly to direction. Her work in this film with a cast of famous professional players, headed by Cecil Kellaway, has astonished us all. She has great self possession, and yet her strongest appeal is her youthful freshness and feminine charm."
Hall used Richards in his next film, the logging adventure Tall Timbers (1937) where she romanced Frank Leighton. She was the female lead in another adventure saga for Hall, Lovers and Luggers (1937), playing opposite American import Lloyd Hughes.
Richards' third film for Hall is arguably her best known Australian movie - playing the daughter of Bert Bailey in Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938). Her final Australian feature was Come Up Smiling (1939), supporting Will Mahoney and directed by William Freshman, though produced by Hall. In 1940, she appeared on stage in a production of Charley's Aunt at the Minerva Theatre.
The following year, she appeared in her final Australian film, the war-time featurette 100,000 Cobbers (1942), directed by Hall.
American film career
Richards left Australia for Hollywood on 11 December 1941. Ken G. Hall had sent on some film featuring her to Carl Dudley, an American-based writer who had worked on the script for It Isn't Done and with whom Richards was to stay when he arrived, but it had gone missing. Nonetheless, Dudley invited screenwriter Fred Finkleberg to dinner to meet Richards; he recommended her to top agent Leland Hayward.
Within her first week in Hollywood, Richards was cast in a short, The Woman in the House (1942), which led to a contract with MGM. The studio saw her as a "young Greer Garson".
"I had an angel on my shoulder", she said later. "The studio respected my Australian credits and treated me like a star, but they cast me as 'Ann Richards', saying 'Shirley Ann, sounded too much like a Southern belle'". (Another reason was to avoid confusion with the actress Anne Shirley.)
MGM built her up slowly, with a small role in Random Harvest (1942) with Ronald Colman and Greer Garson, a part in Three Hearts for Julia, and then a support bit in Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant (1942).
Richards hoped to be cast in the female lead in The Man from Down Under (1943), but missed it. However, she was then given the most prestigious role of her career: the female lead in An American Romance (1944), a big-budget production from director King Vidor starring Brian Donlevy. News of this reached her parents in Australia half an hour before she received a telegraph from the army that their son Roderick, Richards' brother, was a POW in Borneo.
While An American Romance was being made, Richards was announced for leading roles in both Gaslight (1944) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). However, the film ended up spending a lot of time in postproduction, and then flopping badly.
MGM was unsure what to do with Richards. "I loved MGM – except for the waiting – there were long periods when I wasn't being used", she commented later. Richards said the breaking point came when MGM refused to loan her out for a Cecil B. de Mille film. She asked to be released from her contract and then, despite overtures from David O. Selznick, signed contracts with producer Hal B. Wallis and a two-picture deal with RKO.
Wallis scheduled her to star opposite Barry Sullivan in Love Letters (1945). However, he then changed his mind and chose to use Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten in the lead roles; Richards was given a supporting part. She did star in The Searching Wind (1946) with Robert Young for Wallis, but the film was not successful. For RKO, she supported Randolph Scott in Badman's Territory (1946).
Richards then appeared in two movies for Eagle Lion, Lost Honeymoon and Love from a Stranger. She then had a support part in a popular film for Wallis Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). In 1949, it was reported she was trying to get up a film called Michelle as an independent producer.
Retirement
Richards retired in 1949 following her marriage to electronics engineer Edmond Angelo. Angelo ran a successful consulting company and Richards and he raised three children together, Christopher, Mark, and Juliet.
However, she says her husband was "a frustrated film director", so she came out of retirement to appear in a movie produced and directed by him, Breakdown (1952). The film was not a success and Richards appeared in no further dramatic films. Angelo decided to make no further films. She did appear in an episode of General Electric Theatre, "They Like Me Fine" in 1960.
After her retirement, Richards ventured into painting and poetry, publishing several well-received volumes, including The Grieving Senses (1971) and Odyssey for Edmond (1991). She also wrote the verse play Helen of Troy in the 1970s, which Angelo and she presented on college campuses. They remained married until Angelo's death in 1983. Richards passed away in Torrance, California on August 24, 2006.
Richards had a brother who was killed in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II.
Richards and Australia
While in Hollywood, Richards often appeared at functions promoting Australian interests. She returned to Australia in 1946 for a well-publicised holiday. She took back a pair of wicketkeeping gloves belonging to Bert Oldfield to C. Aubrey Smith in Hollywood.
Appraisal
Writer Tom Vallance said of Richards, "soft-spoken and sincere, she was at her best when conveying depths of wisdom, with a suggestion of passion stoically controlled." Author Stephen Vagg argued she "had an appeal similar to that of the young Olivia de Havilland – she looked like a good girl, but there was always a twinkle in the eye; virginal but with the promise of a lively honeymoon."