Dorothy McGuire

Dorothy Hackett McGuire was born on June 14, 1916, in Omaha, Nebraska, the only child of Isabelle Flaherty McGuire and Thomas Johnson McGuire. She died on September 13, 2001. Following her father's death, she attended a convent school in Indianapolis, Indiana, and later enrolled at Pine Manor Junior College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, where she served as president of the drama club and graduated at age 19. Her stage debut came at age 13 at a community playhouse in Omaha, where she appeared in Barrie's A Kiss for Cinderella alongside Henry Fonda, who had returned to his home state after establishing himself on Broadway.

Before arriving in New York, McGuire performed in summer stock at Deertrees, Maine, in 1937 and worked as a model under Walter Thornton's management. She also worked in radio, playing Sue in the serial Big Sister in 1937, and participated in an experimental television broadcast, The Mysterious Mummy Case, in 1938. Her Broadway career began that same year when producer Jed Harris hired her to understudy the ingenue in Stop Over, a production that ran only 23 performances. Also in 1938, she served as understudy to Martha Scott in Our Town, eventually assuming Scott's role. She subsequently toured opposite John Barrymore in My Dear Children and appeared in a 1939 revue with Benny Goodman titled Swingin' the Dream, followed by roles in Medicine Show and a revival of Kind Lady, both in 1940.

McGuire's Broadway breakthrough came with the title role in the domestic comedy Claudia, which ran for 722 performances from 1941 to 1943. The performance attracted the attention of producer David O. Selznick, who brought her to Hollywood to reprise the role in the 1943 film adaptation. That picture co-starred Robert Young and was sold by Selznick to 20th Century Fox. McGuire and Young were subsequently reunited at RKO for The Enchanted Cottage in 1945, a box-office success, and again for the sequel Claudia and David in 1946. Also in 1945, she replaced Gene Tierney in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, directed by Elia Kazan at Fox, playing the mother at age 28. Her role as a mute lead in The Spiral Staircase in 1946 further demonstrated her range, and Kazan again directed her in Gentleman's Agreement in 1947, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

Following Gentleman's Agreement, McGuire joined Gregory Peck and other actors in founding the La Jolla Playhouse, where she appeared in productions including The Importance of Being Earnest, I Am a Camera, The Winslow Boy, and Tonight at 8:30. She then lived in Italy for a year before returning to film work. After a period of less commercially successful pictures, she scored a major hit with Three Coins in the Fountain at Fox in 1954. Her performance as Gary Cooper's wife in William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion in 1956 earned her the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress and led to a sustained series of maternal roles. She played the mother in Disney's Old Yeller in 1957 and the matriarch in Swiss Family Robinson in 1960, one of the most popular films of that year. Additional mother roles followed in This Earth Is Mine, A Summer Place, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, Susan Slade, and Disney's Summer Magic. She portrayed the Virgin Mary in The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965.

McGuire returned to Broadway in Legend of Lovers in 1951 and 1952, and again in Winesburg, Ohio in 1958. Her final Broadway appearance came in a revival of The Night of the Iguana from 1976 to 1977, alongside Richard Chamberlain. That production earned her a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Play in 1977. Her Broadway career thus spanned from 1938 to 1976.

Her later career was concentrated largely in television. She made her television debut in an adaptation of Dark Victory for Robert Montgomery Presents and went on to appear in TV movies including She Waits in 1972 and The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel in 1979, among others. From 1984 to 1985, she played Cora Miller, the estranged mother of Victor Newman, on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless. She also provided voice work for Jonathan Livingston Seagull in 1973 and narration for Summer Heat in 1987, and toured in I Never Sang for My Father that same year. Guest appearances on series including Fantasy Island, Hotel, St. Elsewhere, and Highway to Heaven rounded out her television work in her later decades.