Ann Sheridan

Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan (February 21, 1915 – January 21, 1967) was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films San Quentin, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), They Drive by Night (1940), City for Conquest (1940), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), Kings Row (1942), Nora Prentiss (1947), and I Was a Male War Bride (1949).

Early life Sheridan was born in Denton, Texas, the youngest of five children of garage mechanic George W. Sheridan and Lula Stewart (née Warren). According to Sheridan, her father was a grandnephew of Civil War Union general Philip Sheridan.

She was active in dramatics at Denton High School, where she was class president, She said, "I can whistle through my fingers, bulldog a steer, light a fire with two sticks, shoot a pistol with fair accuracy, set type, and teach school." when her sister entered Sheridan's photograph into a beauty contest. , where she played mostly uncredited bit parts for the next two years. She can be glimpsed in the following 1934 films, and if credited, as Clara Lou Sheridan: Bolero, Come On Marines!, Murder at the Vanities, Shoot the Works, Kiss and Make-Up with Cary Grant, The Notorious Sophie Lang, College Rhythm (directed by Norman Taurog whom Sheridan admired), Ladies Should Listen with Cary Grant, You Belong to Me, Wagon Wheels, The Lemon Drop Kid with Lee Tracy, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Ready for Love, Limehouse Blues with George Raft and Anna May Wong, and One Hour Late.

Along with fellow contractees, Sheridan worked with Paramount's drama coach Nina Moise and performed on the studio lot in such plays as The Milky Way and The Pursuit of Happiness. While in The Milky Way, Paramount decided to change her first name from Clara Lou to the same as her character Ann.

Sheridan was then cast in the film at the behest of director and friend Mitchell Leisen. The role provided two standout scenes for the actress, including one in which her character commits suicide, to which she attributed Paramount's keeping her under contract.

She continued with bit parts in with Elissa Landi and Cary Grant, with Randolph Scott and Evelyn Brent, and with George Raft and Carole Lombard, until her first lead role in Car 99 (1935), with Fred MacMurray. "No acting, it was just playing the lead, that's all", she later said. Sheridan made Fighting Youth (1935) at Universal and then signed a contract with Warner Bros. in 1936.

Warner Bros.

Sheridan's career prospects began to improve at her new studio. Her early films for Warner Bros. included Sing Me a Love Song (1936); with Humphrey Bogart; The Great O'Malley (1937) with Pat O'Brien and Bogart, her first real break; , with O'Brien and Bogart, singing for the first time in a film; and Wine, Women and Horses (1937) with Barton MacLane.

Sheridan moved into B picture leads: The Footloose Heiress (1937); with John Litel; and She Loved a Fireman (1937) with Dick Foran for director John Farrow. She was a lead in and its sequel . Sheridan was in Little Miss Thoroughbred (1938) with Litel for Farrow and supported Dick Powell in Cowboy from Brooklyn (1938).

Universal borrowed her for a support role in at the behest of director John M. Stahl. For Farrow, she was in Broadway Musketeers (1938), a remake of Three on a Match (1932).

Sheridan's notices in Letter of Introduction impressed Warner Bros. executives and she began to get roles in better-quality pictures at her own studio starting with Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), wherein she played James Cagney's love interest; Bogart, O'Brien and the Dead End Kids had supporting roles. The film was a big hit and critically acclaimed.

Sheridan was reunited with the Dead End Kids in They Made Me a Criminal (1938) starring John Garfield. She was third-billed in the Western , playing a saloon owner opposite Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The film was another success.

Oomph girl

In March 1939, Warner Bros. announced Sheridan had been voted by a committee of 25 men as the actress with the most "oomph" in America. "Oomph" was described as "a certain indefinable something that commands male interest". Sheridan reportedly loathed the sobriquet that made her a popular pin-up girl in the early 1940s. However, she expressed in a February 25, 1940, news story distributed by the Associated Press that she no longer "bemoaned the 'oomph' tag." She continued, "But I'm sorry now. I know if it hadn't been for 'oomph' I'd probably still be in the chorus."

Stardom Sheridan co-starred with Dick Powell in and played a wacky heiress in .

She was top billed in with O'Brien and Angels Wash Their Faces (1939) with the Dead End Kids and Ronald Reagan. Castle on the Hudson (1940) put her opposite Garfield and O'Brien.

Sheridan's first real starring vehicle was It All Came True (1940), a musical comedy costarring Bogart and Jeffrey Lynn. She introduced the song "Angel in Disguise".

Sheridan and Cagney were reunited in Torrid Zone (1940) with O'Brien in support. She was with George Raft, Bogart and Ida Lupino in They Drive by Night (1940), a smash-hit trucking melodrama. Sheridan was back with Cagney for City for Conquest (1941) and then made , a comedy with George Brent.

Sheridan did two lighter films: , a musical comedy, and with Bette Davis, wherein she played a character modeled on Gertrude Lawrence. She then made Kings Row (1942), in which she received top billing playing opposite Ronald Reagan, Robert Cummings, and Betty Field. It was a major success and one of Sheridan's most memorable films.

Sheridan and Reagan were reunited for Juke Girl (1942) released about six weeks after Kings Row. She was in the war film Wings for the Eagle (1942) and made a comedy with Jack Benny, George Washington Slept Here (1943). She played a Norwegian resistance fighter in with Errol Flynn and was one of the many Warner Bros. stars who had cameos in .

She was the heroine of a novel, Ann Sheridan and the Sign of the Sphinx, written by Kathryn Heisenfelt and published by Whitman Publishing Company in 1943. While the heroine of the story was identified as a famous actress, the stories were entirely fictitious. The story was probably written for a young teenaged audience and is reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. It is part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", 16 books published between 1941 and 1947 that always featured a film actress as heroine.

Sheridan was given the lead in the musical , playing Nora Bayes, opposite Dennis Morgan. She was in a comedy, The Doughgirls (1944).

Sheridan was absent from screens for over a year, touring with the USO to perform in front of the troops as far afield as China. She returned in with Morgan. She had an excellent role in the noir Nora Prentiss (1947), which was a hit. It was followed by The Unfaithful (1948), a remake of The Letter, and , a Western melodrama with Errol Flynn.

Leo McCarey borrowed her to support Gary Cooper in . She was meant to star in Flamingo Road. She then left Warner Bros., saying: "I wasn't at all satisfied with the scripts they offered me."

Freelance star Her role in I Was a Male War Bride (1949), directed by Howard Hawks and starring Cary Grant, was another success. In 1950, she appeared on the ABC musical television series Stop the Music.

She made , a comedy with Victor Mature at Fox.

In April 1949, she announced she wanted to produce Second Lady, a film based on a story by Eleanore Griffin. She was going to make My Forbidden Past (originally titled Carriage Entrance) at RKO. The New York Times reported the amount as $350,000 ($ million today). Sheridan ultimately won $55,162 ($ today).

Universal Sheridan made Woman on the Run (1950), a noir also starring Dennis O'Keefe which she produced. She wanted to make a film called Her Secret Diary.

Woman on the Run was distributed by Universal, and Sheridan signed a contract with that studio. While there, she made , Just Across the Street (1952), and Take Me to Town (1953), a comedy with Sterling Hayden that was the first film directed by Douglas Sirk in the United States.

Later career

Sheridan starred with Glenn Ford in Appointment in Honduras (1953), directed by Jacques Tourneur. She appeared opposite Steve Cochran in Come Next Spring (1956) and was one of several stars in MGM's The Opposite Sex (1956), a remake of The Women starring June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Sheridan and Ann Miller. Her last film, Woman and the Hunter (1957), was shot in Africa.

She performed in stage tours of Kind Sir (1958) and Odd Man In (1959), and The Time of Your Life at the Brussels World Fair in 1958. In all three shows, she acted with Scott McKay, whom she later married.

In 1962, she played the lead in the Western series Wagon Train episode titled "The Mavis Grant Story".

In the mid-1960s, Sheridan appeared on the NBC soap opera Another World. The 19th episode of the series, "Beware the Hangman", aired as scheduled on the same day that she died in 1967.

For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Ann Sheridan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7024 Hollywood Boulevard.

Personal life Sheridan married actor Edward Norris August 16, 1936, in Ensenada, Mexico. They separated a year later and divorced in 1939. On January 5, 1942, she married fellow Warner Bros. star George Brent, who co-starred with her in Honeymoon for Three (1941); they divorced exactly one year later . Following her divorce from Brent, she had a long-term relationship with publicist Steve Hannagan that lasted until his death in 1953. Hannagan bequeathed Sheridan $218,399 (equivalent to $ million today).

Sheridan engaged in a romantic affair with Mexican actor Rodolfo Acosta, with whom she appeared in 1953's Appointment in Honduras. She and the married Acosta shared an apartment in Mexico City for several years, and Sheridan was charged with criminal adultery in Mexican federal court in October, 1956, following an accusation by Acosta's wife, Jeanine Cohen Acosta. Mexican authorities issued a warrant for Sheridan's arrest. Nothing came of the criminal charges, and the relationship ended c. 1958.

On June 5, 1966, Sheridan married actor Scott McKay, who was with her when she died seven months later.

Sheridan supported Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 presidential elections.

Death In 1966, Sheridan began starring in a new television series, a Western-themed comedy called Pistols 'n' Petticoats. She became ill during the filming and died of esophageal cancer with massive liver metastases, at age 51, on January 21, 1967, in Los Angeles. She was cremated and her ashes were interred in the private vault at Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles until they were reinterred in a niche in the Chapel Columbarium at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 2005.

Biography

Michael D. Rinella, Ann Sheridan - The Life and Career of Hollywood's Oomph Girl. McFarland Publishers. 2024

Filmography Year Film Role Notes 1934 Search for Beauty Dallas Beauty Winner uncredited 1934 Bolero Minor Role uncredited 1934 Come On Marines! Loretta 1934 Murder at the Vanities Earl Carroll Girl uncredited 1934 Many Happy Returns Chorine uncredited 1934 Shoot the Works Hanratty's Secretary uncredited 1934 Kiss and Make Up Beautician 1934 The Notorious Sophie Lang Mannequin uncredited 1934 Ladies Should Listen Adele 1934 You Belong to Me Wedding Party Guest uncredited 1934 Wagon Wheels Young Lady uncredited 1934 The Lemon Drop Kid Minor Role uncredited 1934 Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch Town Girl uncredited 1934 College Rhythm Chorine / Gloves Salesgirl uncredited 1934 Ready for Love Priscilla at Basket Social uncredited 1934 Star Night at the Cocoanut Grove Sands of the Desert Model Short; uncredited 1934 Behold My Wife Mary White 1934 Limehouse Blues Minor Role uncredited 1934 One Hour Late Girl uncredited 1935 Enter Madame Flora's Shipboard Friend 1935 Home on the Range Singer 1935 Rumba Chorus Girl uncredited 1935 Car 99 Mary Adams 1935 Rocky Mountain Mystery Rita Ballard 1935 Mississippi Schoolgirl uncredited 1935 Red Blood of Courage Elizabeth Henry 1935 The Glass Key Nurse 1935 The Crusades Christian Slave Girl uncredited 1935 Hollywood Extra Girl Genevieve Documentary short 1935 Fighting Youth Carol Arlington 1937 Sing Me a Love Song 1937 Black Legion Betty Grogan 1937 The Great O'Malley Judy Nolan 1937 San Quentin May Kennedy aka May De Villiers 1937 The Footloose Heiress Kay Allyn 1937 Wine, Women and Horses Valerie 1937 Alcatraz Island Flo Allen 1937 She Loved a Fireman Marjorie "Margie" Shannon 1938 The Patient in Room 18 Sarah Keate 1938 Mystery House Sarah Keate 1938 Out Where the Stars Begin Herself Short; uncredited 1938 Little Miss Thoroughbred Madge Perry Morgan 1938 Cowboy from Brooklyn Maxine Chadwick 1938 Letter of Introduction Lydia Hoyt 1938 Broadway Musketeers Fay Reynolds Dowling 1938 Angels with Dirty Faces Laury Martin 1939 They Made Me a Criminal Goldie 1939 Dodge City Ruby Gilman 1939 Naughty but Nice Zelda Manion 1939 Indianapolis Speedway "Frankie" Merrick 1939 Winter Carnival Jill Baxter 1939 The Angels Wash Their Faces Joy Ryan 1940 Castle on the Hudson Kay 1940 It All Came True Sarah Jane Ryan 1940 Torrid Zone Lee Donley 1940 They Drive by Night Cassie Hartley 1940 City for Conquest Peggy Nash 1941 Honeymoon for Three Anne Rogers 1941 Navy Blues Marge Jordan 1942 The Man Who Came to Dinner Lorraine Sheldon 1942 Kings Row Randy Monaghan 1942 Juke Girl Lola Mears 1942 Wings for the Eagle Roma Maple 1942 George Washington Slept Here Connie Fuller 1943 Edge of Darkness Karen Stensgard 1943 Thank Your Lucky Stars Ann Sheridan 1944 Shine On, Harvest Moon Nora Bayes 1944 The Doughgirls Edna Stokes Cadman 1946 Cinderella Jones Red Cross Nurse uncredited 1946 One More Tomorrow Christie Sage 1947 The Unfaithful Chris Hunter 1947 Nora Prentiss Nora Prentiss 1948 Silver River Georgia Moore 1948 Good Sam Lu Clayton 1949 I Was a Male War Bride 1st Lt. Catherine Gates 1950 Stella Stella Bevans 1950 Woman on the Run Eleanor Johnson also co-producer 1952 Steel Town "Red" McNamara 1952 Just Across the Street Henrietta Smith 1953 Take Me to Town Vermilion O'Toole aka Mae Madison 1953 Appointment in Honduras Sylvia Sheppard 1956 Come Next Spring Bess Ballot 1956 Sneak Preview Terry ConwayTV seriesEpisode: "Calling Terry Conway" 1956 The Opposite Sex Amanda Penrose 1957 Woman and the Hunter Laura Dodds 1962 Wagon Train Mavis GrantTV seriesEpisode: "The Mavis Grant Story" 1967 The Far Out West Henrietta "Hank" Hanks archive footage

Radio appearances Year Program EpisodeRef 1943 Screen Guild Players Love Is News 1952 Stars in the Air Good Sam

Honors +YearOrganizationCategoryWorkResultRef.1960Hollywood Walk of FameStar - Motion Pictures