{"id":893072,"date":"2026-06-26T01:43:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T01:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/893072\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T01:43:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T01:43:17","slug":"ann-blyth-dead-joan-crawfords-daughter-in-mildred-pierce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/893072\/","title":{"rendered":"Ann Blyth Dead: Joan Crawford’s Daughter in ‘Mildred Pierce’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAnn Blyth, who drew a 1946 Oscar nomination for her memorable performance as the spoiled, selfish daughter of Joan Crawford\u2019s hard-working, devoted title character in the classic film \u201cMildred Pierce<\/a>,\u201d died Wednesday. She was 98.<\/p>\n

\n\tKABC\u2019s George Pennachio reported her death<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe dark beauty was also\u00a0noted for her roles in\u00a0prison drama \u201cBrute Force\u201d (1947), Mario Lanza vehicle \u201cThe Great Caruso\u201d (1951) and 1957\u2019s \u201cThe Helen Morgan Story\u201d with Paul Newman.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interstitial recorded many decades later for Turner Classic Movies, Blyth recalled shooting \u201cMildred Pierce\u201d with Crawford and declared that despite their characters\u2019 fraught relationship on screen, she and Crawford got along very well, and it was hard for her to slap Crawford\u00a0for one of the movie\u2019s pivotal scenes.<\/p>\n

\n\tCrawford won the best actress Oscar for \u201cMildred Pierce,\u201d which was also nominated for best picture, among other categories.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMildred Pierce,\u201d based on the James M. Cain novel, was remade by Todd Haynes as an HBO miniseries in 2011 that starred Kate Winslet, with\u00a0Evan Rachel Wood playing the ungrateful daughter Veda.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile briefly on vacation from filming \u201cDanger Signal,\u201d in 1945, Blyth broke her back in a sledding accident, and she spent a year and a half convalescing in a back brace, after which Universal used her in the excellent prison drama \u201cBrute Force,\u201d starring Burt Lancaster, while she was still confined to a wheelchair. After she recovered, Universal gave Blyth her first starring role in \u201cSwell Guy.\u201d She also starred opposite Mickey Rooney in the film noir \u201cKiller McCoy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actress had an interesting and challenging role in 1948\u2019s \u201cAnother Part of the Forest,\u201d a prequel to Lillian Hellman\u2019s \u201cThe Little Foxes\u201d in which she played a younger version of the Regina Hubard character immortalized on film by Bette Davis.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1950 melodrama \u201cOur Very Own,\u201d she played an adopted child searching for her birth mother, and Blyth played a woman wrongly convicted of murder in \u201cThunder on the Hill.\u201d She was wife to Mario Lanza\u2019s Enrico Caruso in 1951\u2019s \u201cThe Great Caruso,\u201d and she also appeared in lighter fare such as \u201cMr. Peabody and the Mermaid\u201d and \u201cKatie Did It.\u201d In 1952 she starred opposite Gregory Peck in \u201cThe World in His Arms,\u201d her last film for Universal.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt MGM she appeared in a series of operettas, including \u201cKismet,\u201d but the era of the grand film musicals was ending, and she was not the only star whose career suffered as a result.<\/p>\n

\n\tGoing out on a high note, she played the tragic title character in 1957\u2019s \u201cThe Helen Morgan Story,\u201d about an alcoholic torch singer; strangely, her singing voice was dubbed.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnn Marie Blyth was born in\u00a0Mount Kisco, New York. She was young when her parents split, and her mother moved Blyth and her sister to New York City.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor a time aiming for an opera\u00a0career, Blyth trained with\u00a0the San Carlo Opera Company.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe made her single Broadway appearance in the original production of Lillian Hellman\u2019s WWII drama \u201cWatch on the Rhine\u201d in 1941-42. She toured with the show in Los Angeles, where she was noticed and given a screen test at Universal.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe young actress made her big screen debut in 1944\u2019s swing-era teen musical \u201cChip Off the Block,\u201d a B musical starring Donald O\u2019Connor in which she got to show off her pipes. Roles in similar fare followed:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe Merry Monahans\u201d and \u201cBabes on Swing Street,\u201d also 1944 films. But she didn\u2019t really get noticed until her role in Warner Bros.\u2019 \u201cMildred Pierce\u201d in 1945.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe devout Catholic focused on family after her film career essentially ended in 1957 as well as musical theater, appearing in \u201cThe Sound of Music,\u201d \u201cThe King and I,\u201d \u201cCarnival,\u201d \u201cBittersweet,\u201d \u201cSouth Pacific,\u201d \u201cShow Boat\u201d and \u201cA Little Night Music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBlyth had started making occasional appearances on television in the 1950s, appearing, for example, in a \u201cLux Video Theatre\u201d adaptation of \u201cA Place in the Sun\u201d in 1954, on \u201cThe DuPont Show With June Allyson\u201d in 1959 and \u201cThe Dick Powell Theatre\u201d in 1962. She made several appearances on the TV Western \u201cWagon Train\u201d in the early 1960s and starred in the \u201cQueen of the Nile\u201d episode of \u201cTwilight Zone\u201d in 1964. Later she appeared a couple of times on \u201cQuincy, M.E.\u201d before her final television appearance on \u201cMurder, She Wrote\u201d in 1985.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actress was married to Dr.\u00a0James McNulty from\u00a01953 until his death in\u00a02007. They had five children, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ann Blyth, who drew a 1946 Oscar nomination for her memorable performance as the spoiled, selfish daughter of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":893073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,171,362000,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-893072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-mildred-pierce","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116813877083330036","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}