McGuire, Dorothy Hackett

▪ 2002

      American actress (b. June 14, 1918, Omaha, Neb.—d. Sept. 14, 2001, Santa Monica, Calif.), had a long stage and screen career in which she specialized in portraying gentle, warm, and intelligent women. The qualities she projected—kindness, integrity, and inner strength—did not rely on glamour, and she was thus able to make a smooth transition into motherly roles in her later years. By age 13 McGuire had made her stage debut, opposite Henry Fonda in an Omaha Community Playhouse production of A Kiss for Cinderella. After moving to New York City, she acted on radio in a soap opera and in 1938 became an understudy in Our Town, taking over the character of Emily—and thus making her Broadway debut—when Martha Scott left the show. Three years later McGuire landed the lead in Claudia; she made her film debut in that role in 1943. She portrayed leading roles in numerous films, including A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Enchanted Cottage (both 1945); The Spiral Staircase (1946); Gentlemen's Agreement (1947), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award; and Three Coins in the Fountain (1954). McGuire also continued performing onstage, with a tour in Summer and Smoke (1950) and a Broadway appearance in Legend of Lovers (1951) among her credits. Her transition to motherly roles began with Friendly Persuasion (1956) and continued in Old Yeller (1957), The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (1959), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), and, most notably, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), in which she portrayed the Virgin Mary.

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