The Actress

The Actress is a 1953 American comedy-drama film based on Ruth Gordon's autobiographical play Years Ago. Gordon wrote the screenplay. The film was directed by George Cukor and stars Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, and Teresa Wright, and features Anthony Perkins in his film debut. The film is basically a series of vignettes involving Ruth, her parents, her best friends, and the college boy romantically pursuing her. Although Gordon did become an accomplished Academy Award-winning actress and a successful writer, the film ends without the audience seeing Gordon achieve her goals. The Actress was nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White. Tracy won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Drama, and he was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Foreign Actor. Simmons was named Best Actress by the National Board of Review, and Gordon's screenplay was nominated Best Written American Comedy by the Writers Guild of America despite being far more dramatic than comedic. Plot In Wollaston, Massachusetts in 1913, teenage student Ruth Gordon Jones dreams of a theatrical career after becoming mesmerized by a performance of The Pink Lady in a Boston theater. She writes a fan letter to leading lady Hazel Dawn, who then encouages Ruth to pursue her dreams.