Celebrity Deathwatch: Ann Sothern, Actress, 92

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/17/obit.sothern.ap/index.html

Ann Sothern, star of movies, TV, dies at 92

March 17, 2001
Web posted at: 10:37 a.m. EST (1537 GMT)

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Ann Sothern, the blond beauty who starred as the movies'
wisecracking "Maisie" and as the busybody Susie McNamara in the 1950s TV
series "Private Secretary," has died at her Idaho home. She was 92.

Sothern died late Thursday of heart failure at her home in Ketchum, Idaho,
said her spokesman, Mike Kaplan.

An accomplished singer as well as comedian, Sothern appeared in MGM musicals
such as "Lady Be Good" and "Panama Hattie." She was in a second TV series,
"The Ann Sothern Show," as the assistant manager of a plush New York hotel.

Sothern's film career spanned six decades and included 64 movies and more
than 175 TV episodes.

Only in 1988 did she win recognition from the Motion Picture Academy. She
was nominated for an Oscar as supporting actress in "The Whales of August,"
which also starred veterans Bette Davis, Lillian Gish and Vincent Price.

"She was one of those people who I think was never, ever appreciated in her
own time," Robert Osborne, a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter and host
of Turner Classic Movies cable TV network, said on Friday. "There was
nothing she couldn't do. Light comedy was her forte, but she also was a good
singer and the camera loved her."

Her first Columbia film was the lightweight 1934 musical "Let's Fall in
Love." She followed with more undemanding roles at Columbia and RKO, where
she and another contract player, Lucille Ball, commiserated over their lack
of progress. After RKO dropped her, Sothern waited a year until she could
find a worthy role.

"Trade Winds" in 1939 offered her sophisticated comedy (dialogue by Dorothy
Parker) and brought rave reviews and an MGM contract. Her first MGM film,
"Maisie," had been designed for Jean Harlow, who had died in 1937. It cast
Sothern as a flip one-time burlesque dancer with a warm heart and a failing
for man trouble. Said Variety: "She's sexy, smart and resourceful -- and
decidedly likable throughout."

The film was a hit and led to nine more "Maisies" between 1939 and 1947.

MGM also starred her in musicals and comedies such as "Dulcy," "Words and
Music," "Three Hearts for Julia," "Thousands Cheer" and "Fast and Furious."
In "Lady Be Good" she sang Kern-Hammerstein's "The Last Time I saw Paris,"
which won the 1941 Academy Award as best song.

After leaving MGM, she proved herself as a serious actress in Joseph
Mankiewicz's "A Letter to Three Wives," Oscar winner for best picture of
1949. A siege of hepatitis kept her out of acting for a year, then in 1952
she launched her television career with "Private Secretary."

"Like all the other stars at MGM, I had been living in a glass cage," she
said after facing the rigors of TV schedules. "Life was beautiful there;
everything was done for us. I had forgotten what real work was."

"Private Secretary," in which she played the nosy Susie McNamara, was an
immediate success, lasting from 1953 to 1957. The star quit after a dispute
with the producer, and in 1958 she began "The Ann Sothern Show," playing an
assistant manager of a big-city hotel. She worked at the former RKO studio,
newly owned by Ball and Desi Arnaz.

After the series faded in 1961, movie roles became scarce, studios being
wary of hiring TV stars.

Wanting to return to serious roles, she studied drama with Stella Adler and
then played a prostitute in "Lady in a Cage," a political busybody in "The
Best Man," a blowzy has-been in "Sylvia." Her other films included
"Chubasco," "The Killing Mind," "Golden Needles" and "Crazy Mama."

She also had one more recurring role in a TV series, a most unusual one: She
was the voice of the woman reincarnated as an antique auto in the 1965-66
sitcom "My Mother the Car."

She was born Harriette Lake in Valley City, North Dakota, on Jan. 22, 1909.
Her mother sang in concerts, and as a youngster Harriette learned piano and
trained as a lyric soprano. Harriette was 6 when her father deserted the
family, and her mother moved her three daughters to Minneapolis, and later
Los Angeles.

Harriette made her film debut in Warner Bros.' early talkie, "The Show of
Shows," in 1929. After a few small roles, she went to Broadway for the
musicals "Smiles," "Everybody Welcome" and "America's Sweetheart." She was
appearing in "Of Thee I Sing" when Columbia Pictures signed her.

Columbia boss Harry Cohn decided there were too many Lakes in movies. She
became Ann Sothern, taken from her mother's first name and the distinguished
actor E.H. Sothern.

Sothern was plagued with health problems in later years. In 1974, a fake
tree fell on her during a play, fracturing a vertebra and damaging nerves to
her legs. Years of operations and treatments followed.

She was married to bandleader and actor Roger Pryor from 1936 to 1942 and to
actor Robert Sterling from 1943 to 1949. Both marriages ended in divorce.

Sothern moved in 1984 to Ketchum, which she had visited to ski since the
1940s. Her only child, actress Tisha Sterling, had a house nearby and was
with her when she died.

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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