Thelma Ritter

Ritter shared the 1958 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for performance in the musical New Girl in Town with her co-star Gwen Verdon. She received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series nomination for Goodyear Television Playhouse in 1956.

• Name — Thelma Ritter • Born — 14 February 1902 • Birthplace — New York City, U.S. • Died — 5 February 1969 • Place of death — New York City, U.S. • Children — 2 • Years Active — 1913–1968 • Occupation — Actress

Thelma Ritter was born on February 14, 1902, in Brooklyn, New York, the first child of Charles and Lucy Ritter. Her father was a bookkeeper, later an office manager. At age 11, Ritter played Puck in a semiprofessional dramatic society's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. As a teenager, she appeared in high-school plays and stock companies. After initially being rebuffed, she received formal training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts upon her graduation from Manual Training High School in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Although she subsequently struggled to establish a stage career, Ritter decided to take a hiatus from acting to raise her two children, Monica and Joe. Their father, her husband, Joseph Moran, was also an actor. In the mid-1930s, he changed professions, becoming an actors' agent and then an advertising executive.

Ritter's first professional experience came with stock theater companies in New York and New England. Her Broadway credits include UTBU (1965), New Girl in Town (1956), In Times Square (1931), and The Shelf (1926). Ritter's first movie role was in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). She made a memorable impression in a brief uncredited part, as a frustrated mother unable to find the toy that Kris Kringle has promised her son. Her third role, in writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives (1949), left a mark, although Ritter was again uncredited. Mankiewicz kept Ritter in mind and cast her as Birdie Coonan in All About Eve (1950), which earned her an Oscar nomination. A second nomination followed for her work in the Mitch Leisen ensemble screwball comedy The Mating Season (1951) starring Gene Tierney and John Lund. Shortly before the film's release, syndicated columnist Bob Thomas called her Hollywood's "most talked-about new starlet". She enjoyed steady film work into the late 1960s. She appeared in many of the episodic drama TV series of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, General Electric Theater, and The United States Steel Hour Her other film roles were as James Stewart's nurse in Rear Window (1954) and Doris Day's housekeeper, Alma, in Pillow Talk (1959). Although best known for comedy roles, she played the occasional dramatic role, most notably in With a Song in My Heart (1952), Pickup on South Street (1953), Titanic (1953), The Misfits (1961), and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), for which she received her final Oscar nomination. Her last work was an appearance on The Jerry Lewis Show on January 23, 1968.

On January 27, 1969, Ritter suffered a heart attack at her residence in Queens, New York City. She died from a second heart attack on February 5, in New York City, at age 66.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1954 — Lux Video Theatre — Lux Video Theatre Guest — Episode: Christmas in July • 1955 — The Best of Broadway — Mrs. Fisher — Episode: The Show-Off • The 20th Century Fox Hour — Abby — Episode: Christopher Bean • Goodyear Television Playhouse — Aggie Hurley — Episode: The Catered Affair • 1956 — Alfred Hitchcock Presents — Lottie Slocum — Season 1 Episode 32: The Baby Sitter • 1957 — Telephone Time — Mary Devlin — Episode: Plot to Save a Boy • The United States Steel Hour — Ma Garfield — Episode: The Human Pattern • 1960 — GE True Theatre — Doris Green — Episode: Sarah's Laughter • Startime — Mrs. Gillis — Episode: The Man • 1961 — Frontier Circus — Bertha Marie Beecher — Episode: Journey from Hannibal • 1962 — Wagon Train — Madame Sagittarius — Episode: The Madame Sagittarius Story

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1926 — The Shelf — Miss Batterson — Morosco Theatre, Broadway • 1931 — In Times Square — Sally Stewart — Longacre Theatre, Broadway • 1957 — New Girl in Town — Marthy — 46th Street Theatre, Broadway • 1966 — UTBU — Shirley Amber — Hayes Theatre, Broadway

• Year — Program — Notes — Ref. • 1953 — Theatre Guild on the Air — Episode: A Square Peg