Margaret Sullavan
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
"Acting in the movies is just like ditch-digging"--Margaret Sullavan
"I still hate making pictures! And I don't like Hollywood any better. I detest the limelight and love simplicity, and in Hollywood the only thing that matters is the hullabaloo of fame. If Hollywood will let me alone to find my way without forcing me and rushing me into things, I probably will change my feelings about it. But at present Hollywood seems utterly horrible and interfering and consuming. Which is why I want to leave it as soon as I am able."--Margaret Sullavan to "Photoplay" magazine after completing second film, "Little Man, What Now?" (1934)
Biography
A petite brunette with large eyes dominating her small, attractively angular face, Margaret Sullavan made her stage debut with the University Players (which included James Stewart and Henry Fonda) in Falmouth, MA, and entered films in 1933. With her husky voice and unique, magnetic charm Sullavan was an immediate success, proving herself airy and delightful in comedy ("The Good Fairy" 1935, "The Shop Around the Corner" 1939) and wistful and poignant in drama ("Only Yesterday," her 1933 debut; "Three Comrades" 1938). Her unstable temperament and her critical disdain for the Hollywood establishment, however, significantly reduced her screen output, facilitating her many returns to Broadway. She was married to Henry Fonda, William Wyler and producer-agent Leland Hayward. Sullavan suffered a number of mental health problems (including severe depression brought on partly by increasing deafness in middle age) and died of a drug overdose. A family memoir, "Haywire" (1977), was written by her daughter, Brooke Hayward.
Filmography
Cast (Feature Film)
Life Events
1928
Joined the University Players, community theater at Falmouth, M assachusetts (summer)
1928
Made social debut in Norfolk, Virginia (winter)
1929
Returned to University Players
1929
Made stage debut in summer touring production of Preston Sturges's "Strictly Dishonorable"
1929
Rejoined University Players in Baltimore for stock season; co-starring with Henry Fonda
1931
Broadway debut, "A Modern Virgin"
1933
First Broadway success as replacement for Marguerite Churchill in "Dinner at Eight"; signed by Universal on her terms ($1,200 weekly, three years, nonexclusive and with approval rights)
1933
Film debut, "Only Yesterday"
1936
On expiration of Universal contract, returned to Broadway in non-starring role in "Stage Door"
1947
London stage debut, "The Voice of the Turtle"
1948
Appeared on TV in first "Studio One" production
1950
Returned to films after an absence of seven years in "No Sad Songs For Me"
1956
Withdrew from hit comedy "Janus" for health reasons; disappeared on day scheduled to appear on TV in "The Pilot"; committed herself to a sanitarium for nervous exhaustion;
1960
Was appearing in out-of-town tryout of "Sweet Love Remember'd" in New Haven when she was found dead of a drug overdose
Photo Collections
Videos
Movie Clip
Trailer
Family
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
"Acting in the movies is just like ditch-digging"--Margaret Sullavan
"I still hate making pictures! And I don't like Hollywood any better. I detest the limelight and love simplicity, and in Hollywood the only thing that matters is the hullabaloo of fame. If Hollywood will let me alone to find my way without forcing me and rushing me into things, I probably will change my feelings about it. But at present Hollywood seems utterly horrible and interfering and consuming. Which is why I want to leave it as soon as I am able."--Margaret Sullavan to "Photoplay" magazine after completing second film, "Little Man, What Now?" (1934)
"She was a willful, ambitious, feminine, honest, and warm actress whose talents were largely untapped by her second-rate tragic heroine screen assignments. She died from an overdose of sleeping pills when she could no longer cope with the almost total loss of her hearing". ("The MGM Stock Company")
"Eight days after her death it was revealed that she had been almost totally deaf, a disability she had been fighting since 1948". ("MGM Stock Company")
