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Fay Bainter
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American actress Fay Bainter was working in stock at age five, and by the time she was 19 was one of the privileged members of theatrical impresario David Belasco's company. First starring on Broadway in 1912, Bainter was cast in ingenue or romantic parts for the first portion of her career. When she finally decided to give movies a try, it was as a mature, somewhat plump character actress. Her first film was This Side of Heaven (1934), after which, according to many historians she was established in kindly, motherly roles - except for those in which she wasn't so kind and motherly, which constituted the more interesting moments of her film career. In 1938, Bainter made cinema history by being nominated for two Academy Awards in two different categories: As best actress for White Banners, a second-string Warners drama in which she played a "Mrs. Fixit", and as best supporting actress in Jezebel, where she had the somewhat harsher role of southern belle Bette Davis' remonstrative Aunt Belle. Academy members were confused by Bainter's dual nomination, the result being that the Academy was compelled to change its nominating and voting rules (P.S.: She won for Jezebel).
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Starring Academy Award® winners** Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine and co-starring James Garner, Miriam Hopkins and Fay Bainter, this landmark film is "one of the most finely wrought dramas in the history ofthe screen" (Motion Picture Herald). Karen (Hepburn) and Martha (MacLaine) are theheadmistresses of an exclusive school for girls. When they discipline a malicious little girl, the vindictive child twists an overheard comment into slander and accuses her teachers of questionable behavior. Soon the scandalous gossip engulfs the school's community, with repercussions that are swift, crushing and tragic. *1961: Supporting Actress (Bainter), Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Sound **Hepburn: Actress, Roman Holiday (1953); Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1992); MacLaine: Actress, Terms of Endearment (1983)
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Lysistrata (Fay Bainter), disgusted by 20 years of war between Athens and the cities of Sparta, Thebes and Corinth, summoned the women of these towns to meet her in Mr. Bel Geddes' rich-hued, towering Acropolis. The older women arrived first, overpowered the guards, seized the citadel and the treasury. Somewhat tardily, the sleepy-eyed belles of Athens appeared, followed by big-boned Spartan women, country girls from Thebes, light ladies from Corinth. Taken aback were they when Lysistrata proposed to end the war by pledging each woman to deny herself to husband or lover until peace should be declared. Because the men had been away for six months, and because the ladies of Greece had normal womanly appetites, Miss Bainter had to use a great deal of oratorical persuasion. Finally the women agreed—with reservations.
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It was an omen that Fay Bainter arrived in Des Moines during the Iowa State Fair in 1914. Years later she would be remembered for her role as the mother in the popular 1945 movie version of "State Fair." Bainter lived in Iowa only a few years as a young woman, but she later called herself a "Des Moines product." She was born in Los Angeles and pushed into acting by her mother. The girl was on stage by age 6, and made her Broadway debut at 18. Nothing came of it, so she went back to working in stock acting companies.
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Few Hollywood actresses could have played the latter role without making it tiresomely maudlin, but then, in 1938, Fay Bainter wasn't really considered a Hollywood actress. White Banners was only her sixth film. And though she had made her screen debut in 1934, she hadn't really committed to the move to films until 1937, when she effortlessly stole Quality Street from its nominal star, Katharine Hepburn. Bainter had been on stage since 1899, when she was only five. She had gone from child star to ing¿e to Broadway leading lady and had recently won acclaim with one of her first older-woman roles, as Walter Huston's vain, capricious wife in the stage adaptation of Dodsworth. With Rains, she helped make White Banners into solid entertainment.
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American actress Fay Bainter was working in stock at age five, and by the time she was 19 was one of the privileged members of theatrical impresario David Belasco's company. First starring on Broadway in 1912, Bainter was cast in ingenue or romantic parts for the first portion of her career. When...Read More
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Fay Bainter