Celebrity Grave: "The Oomph Girl" Actress Ann Sheridan 1967

Ann Sheridan (February 21, 1915 – January 21, 1967) was an American film actress.

Life and career

Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a college student when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a Paramount film. She abandoned college to pursue a career in Hollywood.

She made her film debut in 1934, aged 19, in the film Search for Beauty, and played uncredited bit parts in Paramount films for the next two years. Paramount made little effort to develop Sheridan's talent, so she left, signing a contract with Warner Bros. in 1936, and changing her name to "Ann Sheridan."

Sheridan's career prospects began to improve. The red-haired beauty would soon become Warner's top sex symbol. She received as many as 250 marriage proposals from fans in a single week.[1] Tagged "The Oomph Girl," Sheridan was a popular pin-up girl in the early 1940s.

She was the heroine of a novel, Ann Sheridan and the Sign of the Sphinx, written by Kathryn Heisenfelt, 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 teenage 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 1941-1947 that always featured a film actress as heroine.[2]

She received substantial roles and positive reaction from critics and moviegoers in such films as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), opposite James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, Dodge City (1939) with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Torrid Zone with Cagney and They Drive by Night with George Raft and Bogart (both 1940), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis, and Kings Row (1942), where she received top billing playing opposite Ronald Reagan, Robert Cummings, and Betty Field. Known for having a fine singing voice, Ann also appeared in such musicals as Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) and It All Came True (1940). She was also memorable in two of her biggest hits, Nora Prentiss and The Unfaithful, both in 1947.

Despite these successes, her career began to decline. Her role in I Was a Male War Bride (1949), directed by Howard Hawks and costarring Cary Grant, gave her another success, but by the 1950s, she was struggling to find work and her film roles were sporadic. She appeared in the television soap opera Another World during the mid-1960s.

In 1966, Sheridan began starring in a new TV series, a Western-themed comedy called Pistols 'n' Petticoats. But she became ill during the filming, and died of esophageal and liver cancer in Los Angeles, California. She had been a chain cigarette smoker for years, and Cagney remarked in his autobiography that when the cancer struck, "she didn't have a chance." She was cremated and her ashes were stored at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles until they were permanently interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 2005.[3]

Pistols 'n' Petticoats was officially canceled before her death, though some episodes aired afterward. Her lines were dubbed in at least one of these (presumably because the cancer had affected her voice), and she did not appear in a few of the final episodes.

Sheridan married three times, including a marriage lasting one year to fellow Warner Brothers actor George Brent.

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

Filmography

Search for Beauty (1934)
Bolero (1934)
Come on Marines (1934)
Murder at the Vanities (1934)
Shoot the Works (1934)
Kiss and Make Up (1934)
The Notorious Sophie Lang (1934)
Ladies Should Listen (1934)
You Belong to Me (1934)
Wagon Wheels (1934)
The Lemon Drop Kid (1934)
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934)
Ready for Love (1934)
Star Night at the Coconut Grove (1934) (short subject)
Behold My Wife (1934)
Limehouse Blues (1934)
Enter Madame (1935)
One Hour Late (1935)
Home on the Range (1935)
Rumba (1935)
Car 99 (1935)
Rocky Mountain Mystery (1935)
Mississippi (1935)
The Red Blood of Courage (1935)
The Glass Key (1935)
The Crusades (1935)
Hollywood Extra Girl (1935) (short subject)
Fighting Youth (1935)
Sing Me a Love Song (1937) (scenes deleted)
Black Legion (1937)
The Great O'Malley (1937)
San Quentin (1937)
Wine, Women, and Horses (1937)
The Footloose Heiress (1937)
Alcatraz Island (1937)
She Loved a Fireman (1937)
The Patient in Room 13 (1938)
Out Where the Stars Begin (1938) (short subject)
Mystery House (1938)
Little Miss Thoroughbred (1938)
Cowboy from Brooklyn (1938)
Letter of Introduction (1938)
Broadway Musketeers (1938)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
They Made Me a Criminal (1939)
Dodge City (1939)
Naughty But Nice (1939)
Winter Carnival (1939)
Indianapolis Speedway (1939)
The Angels Wash Their Faces (1939)
Castle on the Hudson (1940)
It All Came True (1940)
Torrid Zone (1940)
They Drive by Night (1940)
City for Conquest (1940)
Honeymoon for Three (1941)
Navy Blues (1941)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
Kings Row (1942)
Juke Girl (1942)
Wings for the Eagle (1942)
George Washington Slept Here (1942)
Edge of Darkness (1943)
Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943)
Shine On, Harvest Moon (1944)
The Doughgirls (1944)
One More Tomorrow (1946)
Nora Prentiss (1947)
The Unfaithful (1947)
Silver River (1948)
Good Sam (1948)
I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
Stella (1950)
Woman on the Run (1950) (also co-producer)
Steel Town (1952)
Just Across the Street (1952)
Take Me to Town (1953)
Appointment in Honduras (1953)
Come Next Spring (1956)
The Opposite Sex (1956)
Woman and the Hunter (1957)
The Far Out West (1967)

References

1.^ "Everybody Wants to Marry Annie," AP, May 25, 1941. Accessed June 2, 2009.[1]
2.^ Whitman Authorized Editions for Girls
3.^ http://classicfilm.about.com/od/classicfilmactresses/a/annshrdan20705.htm