Biography for
Anne Baxter More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

7 May 1923, Michigan City, Indiana, USA

Date of Death

12 December 1985, New York City, New York, USA (brain aneurysm)

Height

5' 4" (1.63 m)

Mini Biography

Anne Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana, on May 7, 1923. She was the daughter of a salesman and his wife, Catherine, who herself was the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-renowned architect. Anne was a young girl of 11 when her parents moved to New York City, which at that time was still the hub of the entertainment industry even though the film colony was moving west. The move there encouraged her to consider acting as a vocation. By the time she was 13 she had already appeared in a stage production and had garnered rave reviews from the tough Broadway critics. The play helped her gain entrance to an exclusive acting school. In 1937 Anne made her first foray into Hollywood to test the waters there in the film industry. As she was thought to be too young for a film career, she packed her bags and returned to the New York with her mother, where she continued to act in Broadway and summer stock up and down the East Coast. Undaunted by the failure of her previous effort to crack Hollywood, Anne returned to California two years later to try again. This time her luck was somewhat better. She took a screen test which was ultimately seen by the moguls of Twentieth Century-Fox and she was signed to a seven-year contract. However, before she would make a movie with Fox, Anne was loaned out to MGM to make 20 Mule Team (1940). At only 17 years of age, she was already in the kind of pictures that other starlets would have had to slave for years as an extra before landing a meaty role. Back at Fox, that same year, Anne played Mary Maxwell in The Great Profile (1940), which was a box-office dud. The following year she played Amy Spettigue in the remake of Charley's Aunt (1941). It still wasn't a great role, but it was better than a bit part. The only other film job Anne appeared in that year was in Swamp Water (1941). It was the first role that was really worth anything, but critics weren't that impressed with Anne, her role nor the movie. In 1942 Anne played Joseph Cotten's daughter, Lucy Morgan, in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). The following year she appeared in The North Star (1943), the first film where she received top billing. The film was a critical and financial success and Anne came in for her share of critical plaudits. Guest in the House (1944) the next year was a dismal failure, but Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944) was received much better by the public, though it was ripped apart by the critics. Anne starred with John Hodiak, who would become her first husband in 1947 (Anne was to divorce Hodiak in 1953. Her other two husbands were Randolph Galt and David Klee). In 1946 Anne portrayed Sophie MacDonald in The Razor's Edge (1946), a film that would land her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She had come a long way in so short a time, but for her next two films she was just the narrator: Mother Wore Tights (1947) and Blaze of Noon (1947). It would be 1950 before she landed another decent role--the part of Eve Harrington in All About Eve (1950). This film garnered Anne her second nomination, but she lost the Oscar to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday (1950). After several films through the 1950s, Anne landed what many considered a plum role--Queen Nefretiri in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956). Never in her Hollywood career did Anne look as beautiful as she did as the Egyptian queen, opposite Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. After that epic, job offers got fewer because she wasn't tied to a studio, instead opting to freelance her talents. After no appearances in 1958, she made one film in 1959 Season of Passion (1960) and one in 1960 Cimarron (1960). After Walk on the Wild Side (1962), she took a hiatus from filming for the next four years. She was hardly idle, though. She appeared often on stage and on television. She wasn't particularly concerned with being a celebrity or a personality; she was more concerned with being just an actress and trying hard to produce the best performance she was capable of. After several notable TV appearances, Anne became a staple of two television series, "East of Eden" (1981) and "Hotel" (1983). Her final moment before the public eye was as Irene Adler in the TV film Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death (1984) (TV). On December 12, 1985, Anne died of a stroke in New York. She was 62.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Denny Jackson

Spouse

David Klee	(30 January 1977 - 15 October 1977) (his death)
Randolph Galt	(18 February 1960 - 1968) (divorced) 2 children
John Hodiak	(7 July 1946 - 27 January 1953) (divorced) 1 child

Trivia

Interred at Unity Chapel, Spring Green, Wisconsin, USA.

Granddaughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, architect.

Was initially cast in All About Eve (1950) because of her resemblance to Claudette Colbert. Miss Colbert was first signed for the role of Margo and the idea was to have Eve visually turn into Margo.

Was the top runner for the lead in Rebecca (1940) and completed a few tests for it before David O. Selznick decided to cast Joan Fontaine at the last minute.

Was good friends with legendary costume designer Edith Head. Head was godmother to one of Baxter's daughters.

Mother of actress Katrina Hodiak

Measurements: 34-24-35 (1950 during All About Eve (1950)), 35 1/2-24- 35 (listed 1953) (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine).

Has the unique distinction of being the only actress to play two different guest villains on the original "Batman" (1966) TV show (ABC: 1966-68), having played Zelda the Great during the first season and Olga, Queen of the Bessarovian Cossacks, during the third season. For the latter, she even learned to swear in Russian! Like most performers who guested on the series, she maintained that it was an enjoyable experience.

Daughter Melissa with Randolph Galt.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 51-53. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.

Turned down the role of Polly Cutler in Niagara (1953). After her withdrawal, the film was reworked to highlight Marilyn Monroe.

In Italy, almost all of Anne Baxter's films were dubbed by Dhia Cristiani. She was occasionally dubbed by Lidia Simoneschi, Andreina Pagnani and once by Rosetta Calavetta in Walk on the Wild Side (1962).

Maintained her primary residence in Easton, Connecticut on a ten acre estate from the 1970's until her death.

While Bette Davis and Anne were both the stars of All About Eve (1950), it was thought that they would both stand a better chance at Oscar trophies if Anne were to be placed in the "Supporting Actress" category, thus avoiding each canceling the other out. Anne refused to be put in the supporting category. Sure enough, both actresses were nominated for "Best Actress" Oscars and both lost to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday (1950).

Turned down the starring role in the movie Too Much, Too Soon (1958), the overly dramatic, highly fictional retelling of actress Diana Barrymore's misfortunes. The part went instead to Dorothy Malone.

She replaced Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing in the Broadway hit "Applause", the musical adaptation of "All About Eve".

Was made Honorary Mayor of Universal City in 1970.

She and her third and last husband, David Klee, a prominent stockbroker, were working on renovations on a Connecticut home when he died unexpectedly in October of 1977 after only nine months of marriage.

Anne was walking down Madison Avenue in New York City when she suffered her fatal brain aneurysm in 1985.

The daughter of Kenneth Stuart Baxter, a sales manager, and housewife Catherine, she later had three daughters. Katrina Hodiak is a composer, married and with children. Melissa Galt (born 1961) is an interior designer in the Atlanta, Georgia area, and Maginal Galt (born 1963) is reportedly a Catholic nun residing in Rome, Italy.

Was very good friends with Actress Maureen O'Hara.

Personal Quotes

I patterned Eve [Harrington] after the understudy I had in a Broadway play when I was 13. She actually threatened to finish me off. She was the bitchiest person I ever saw.

The Razor's Edge (1946) contained my only great performance. When we shot that hospital scene in which "Sophie" loses her husband, child and everything else, I relived the death of my brother, whom I adored and who died at three. It gives me chills right now to think of it.

I'm an actress, not a personality. It's more successful to be a personality. But can you use it in every role? I don't spill over into everything I do. I do what I do from inside someone else's skin.