Ann Blyth, Oscar-nominated Mildred Pierce actor, dies at 98

Ann Blyth, the Oscar-nominated actor who played Veda in Mildred Pierce, has died at 98. Her career spanned Broadway, films, musicals, television and operatic performance.

In Short

• Ann Blyth, Oscar-nominated actor and soprano, died at 98
• She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Mildred Pierce
• She suffered a serious back injury after Mildred Pierce

Ann Blyth, the Oscar-nominated actor and soprano known for playing Joan Crawford's calculating daughter Veda in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce, has died at the age of 98, according to The Hollywood Reporter. KABC's George Pennacchio reported that she died of natural causes on Wednesday.

Blyth received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Mildred Pierce, which remained the only Oscar nomination of her career. She later built a wide-ranging career across dramas, musicals, stage work and television, while also remaining known for her work as an operatic soprano.

Five days after finishing work on Mildred Pierce, Blyth suffered a serious back injury in a sledding accident near Lake Arrowhead, California. She later described the episode in a 1954 article titled My Career Took a Toboggan Ride, writing, "One minute we were sailing down the hard-packed icy hillside like snowbirds, then there was a crash and I fell on my back with a sickening thud. I didn't cry out. The feeling was too big for that." The injury left the 5-foot-2 actor in a body cast for seven months, followed by several months in a wheelchair. Even so, she attended the 1946 Academy Awards in a specially designed gown worn over her back brace.

Alongside her dramatic work, Blyth found success in Hollywood musicals. An accomplished operatic soprano, she introduced the song The Loveliest Night of the Year while playing Enrico Caruso's wife opposite Mario Lanza in The Great Caruso (1951). She later appeared in MGM musicals including Rose Marie (1954), The Student Prince (1954) and Vincente Minnelli's Kismet (1955).

Her other film credits included Brute Force (1947), Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948), The Buster Keaton Story (1957) with Donald O'Connor, and The Helen Morgan Story (1957), in which she played singer Helen Morgan opposite Paul Newman. After Mildred Pierce, she also appeared in Swell Guy (1946), Killer McCoy (1947), Another Part of the Forest (1948), Top o' the Morning (1949), The Golden Horde (1951), I'll Never Forget You (1951), One Minute to Zero (1952), The World in His Arms (1952), All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953), The King's Thief (1955) and Slander (1957). The Helen Morgan Story became her final feature film before she moved away from films, though she had been considered for the lead in The Three Faces of Eve, a role that eventually won Joanne Woodward the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Born Anne Marie Blythe on August 16, 1927, in Mount Kisco, New York, she grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side after her father left the family. She began singing and reciting poetry on radio at the age of six and later performed with the San Carlos Opera Company. Her breakthrough came on Broadway in Watch on the Rhine (1941-42), where she played Paul Lukas' daughter. After the production ran for nearly 400 performances, she toured nationally and was invited to the White House, where she and other cast members dined with President Franklin D Roosevelt.

Universal Pictures signed Blyth in 1943, and she appeared in musicals such as Chip Off the Old Block, Babes on Swing Street, The Merry Monahans and Bowery to Broadway, with Donald O'Connor as co-star in three of them. After stepping back from films, she continued to perform in Las Vegas nightclub acts, regional theatre and on television, with appearances in Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone, The Name of the Game, Quincy M.E. and Murder, She Wrote. In the 1970s, she also appeared in a series of Hostess snack cake commercials.

In her personal life, Blyth married Los Angeles obstetrician James McNulty in 1953. McNulty was the brother of singer Dennis Day. The couple had five children, Timothy, Maureen, Kathleen, Terence and Eileen, and remained together until his death in 2007 at the age of 89.

Blyth is remembered for her Oscar-nominated turn in Mildred Pierce, her musical performances and a screen career that extended from Broadway and early studio films to television and live performance.

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