Oscar-nominated actress Ann Sothern dies at 92

Reuters

KETCHUM, Idaho: Actress Ann Sothern, who during 70 years in show business moved from bit-parts and B-movies to becoming an Oscar-nominated leading lady and star of her own television series, has died of heart failure, associates said on Friday. She was 92 years old.

Sothern, who started in Hollywood as an extra and spent a decade as a B-movie regular, became a major star after playing the lead role in 1939's "Maisie," an MGM film about the adventures of an energetic showgirl that was originally intended for Jean Harlow. Sothern captured the street-smart, independent title character so well that MGM made nine more "Maisie" movies, one of the studio's most successful series and one that transformed Sothern into a household name and a feminist icon. She capitalized on that image with two 1950's television shows, "Private Secretary" and "The Ann Sothern Show," which ran until 1961 and featured Sothern as the first working woman to appear in a situation comedy. Sothern earned five Emmy nominations for the two shows, which she produced, and won a Golden Globe award. The actress then lent her voice to the 1960's sitcom "My Mother the Car."

Sothern spent much of the 1970s and 80s in semi-retirement, but returned in 1987 to star alongside fellow screen legends Lillian Gish, Bette Davis and Vincent Price in "The Whales of August," for which she received her first Academy Award nomination. Born Harriette Lake in Valley City, North Dakota, in 1909, the young actress got her start singing in stage productions and filled mostly bit parts until Columbia Pictures signed her to a contract in 1934 and changed her name. Sothern spent the rest of the decade acting in such films as "The Hell-Cat," "Eight Bells," and two movies opposite Gene Raymond, "Hooray for Love" and "The Smartest Girl in Town." She starred alongside Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in "Brother Orchid," winning critical acclaim.

Sothern, who was divorced from actor-musician Roger Pryor and actor Robert Sterling, is survived by her daughter and a sister. A mass is scheduled for her at Our Lady of the Snows Church in Ketchum on March 23.

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