Ordinary Lady Goes to Washington

 When looking at iconic women in Hollywood, 1950 stands out as a year like no other.

At the Academy Awards that year, there was much speculation about who was going to win those coveted little statues, and the Academy Committee was faced with an unenviable choice. 

Because this was the year of All About Eve: a film that earned Oscar nominations for four of its female cast members (and also one male cast member, but that's not important right now).



Bette Davis and Anne Baxter were both nominated for Best Actress, while Thelma Ritter and Celeste Holm were up for Best Supporting Actress. Since there could only be one winner in each category, it was inevitable that someone was going to be disappointed.

But wait; there's more.

1950 was also the year of Sunset Boulevard, and Gloria Swanson was (quite correctly) nominated in the Best Actress category for her astonishing performance as Norma Desmond, the aging silent film actress who refuses to accept the extent to which the film industry had changed.


Pity the poor Oscar voters, having to choose between Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and Gloria Swanson. As I say, 1950 was one hell of a year. Why couldn't every year be like this?

In the end of course, the Oscar for Best Actress that year did not go to any of them. It went to Judy Holliday, for Born Yesterday - which is our chosen film for next week (see? I got there eventually).


Born Yesterday began its life as a (highly successful) stage play on Broadway. It tells the story of Harry Brock (played in the film version by Broderick Crawford) a very successful but rather uncouth junkyard tycoon who has come to Washington with the intention of "buying" a politician or two. He is accompanied by his trophy girlfriend, Billie, played by Judy Holliday in both the stage and screen versions. (Yes, someone named "Holliday" plays someone named "Billie". It's confusing. Get over it.)


Billie is an ex-chorus girl and professional bombshell who looks great in an evening gown, but has no idea how to behave with politicians (or the wives of politicians) so Harry has the brilliant idea of hiring a "tutor" for her: William Holden (who managed to star in this film and Sunset Boulevard in the same year).


Judy Holliday was already a veteran performer by the time she appeared in Born Yesterday. She had begun her career as part of a nightclub act called The Revuers, along with Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who enjoyed some moderate success of their own, if you count things like Singin in the Rain, On The Town, The Bandwagon etc). One of their biggest fans (and eventual collaborator) was a young, slightly nerdy music student named Leonard Bernstein. But I digress.


Judy Holliday's performance in the Broadway version of Born Yesterday had been hugely successful, but she was actually uncertain about making the transition to Hollywood. She was a veteran stage performer but had limited film experience; so Garson Kanin (who had written the stage play) wrote a starring role for her in the 1949 film Adam's Rib, which he and his wife Ruth Gordon were writing for Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. (In Adam's Rib, Holliday tries to kill her unfaithful husband, who is having an affair with Jean Hagan - the actress who memorably played Lina Lamont in Singin in the Rain a few years later. I hope you're taking notes, because there may be questions afterward.)


It's a testament to Judy Holliday that her performance in Born Yesterday managed to beat the likes of Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and Gloria Swanson to an Oscar - especially since actresses hardly ever win Academy Awards for comedies. But then, this is a performance like no other. 


Born Yesterday is also a reflection of author Garson Kanin's very specific (and slightly optimistic) views on American politics; something which is very ironic when you realise that the film was released the very year that he and his wife were blacklisted for alleged Communist sympathies. Judy Holliday herself was also forced to appear before the Un-American Activities Committee, and gave testimony in her persona as Billie from Born Yesterday. It worked: the anti-Communist congressmen on the committee were obviously suckers for a dumb blonde. Maybe they should have watched the entire film.

Born Yesterday still stands today as one of the great political comedies of all time, and we will be screening it on Thursday, the 14th of July at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.

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