Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Sullavan (
May 16,
1911 -
January 1,
1960) was an American actress. Born
Margaret Brooke Sullivan in
Norfolk, Virginia, as the daughter of a wealthy stockbroker, she made her
Broadway debut in
1931. She was married for a few months to
Henry Fonda in 1931 and
1932, and then she later married directors
William Wyler and Leland Hayward. All of her marriages were stormy, and two of her three children spent time in mental hospitals. Sullavan herself suffered from depression and began to grow deaf as she grew older, and she was found unconscious in a hotel room from a
barbiturate overdose. She died a few days later. Her death was officially ruled an accident, but many think it was a suicide.
Her film debut came in 1933 in Only Yesterday. She also appeared in Little Man, What Now, The Good Fairy, So Red the Rose, The Moon's Our Home, Next Time We Love, The Shopworn Angel, Three Comrades (for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress), The Shop Around the Corner, The Mortal Storm, Appointment for Love and Cry Havoc. She co-starred frequently with James Stewart, with whom she and Fonda had acted in a stock company when they were all unknowns.
Her daughter, actress Brooke Hayward, wrote a memoir, Haywire, about her mother's tormented life. It was made into a television movie starring Lee Remick.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street.