Anne Baxter But Baxter was determ ined to stay in Hollywood. Zanuck Baxter said, “I’m going to bring up a strong character, lent her to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she made her let her make her own decisions in life. We hope we film debut in Twenty Mule Team, released in 1940. The can provide the background for a happy, healthy, filmed starred Wallace Beery, who complained that well-adjusted little girl.” Unfortunately the marriage was Baxter was overacting in her role. She managed, how­ a short one; the couple divorced in 1953. Hodiak died ever, to tone down her histrionics to Beery’s satisfac­ of a heart attack two years later. Katrina followed her tion. As a result, she did so well in this film that her parents into acting, appearing in at least one film , Jane home studio cast her opposite John Payne in the John Austen in Manhattan. She now has a teenage son, Tobin, Barrymore film The Great Profile the same year. After named after Baxter’s brother. Baxter’s only grandchild, she did her first bit in the film with her arms “wildly he enjoys singing, dancing, and acting. flailing,” Barrymore asked, “Does she have to swim?” right visited his granddaughter again when she Because she was still of high-school age, the studio costarred with Tallulah Bankhead in 1945’s A enrolled Baxter in the Twentieth Century-Fox Studio WRoyal Scandal. Baxter recalled that after seeing School. After a short stay there, she enrolled at Los Bankhead at work, Wright remarked, “Not bad for an Angeles High School. Upon her graduation in 1941, old dame.” Bankhead overheard the remark and bris­ she had already appeared in four films. The same year tled. The next scene called for Bankhead to tap Baxter she graduated she was Amy Spettigue in Charley’s Aunt lightly on the shoulder. “But she responded with an “I was good, I was respected, l h a d a g r e a t p a r t , the script was superb; the actors were perfect and p e r f e c tly c a s t . Even me, and I wasn’t always.” opposite Jack Benny, and she worked with the great uppercut that sent me reeling,” said Baxter. “Then she French director Jean Renoir in Swamp Water, shot on smiled sweetly and retired to her dressing room.” location in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. When Zanuck began searching lor the right actress to play Although the film did not do well with critics, Baxter the doomed character Sophie Macdonald in a film adap­ received good notices for her work. tation ofW. Somerset Maugham’s book The Razor’s Edge, In 1942 Baxter was cast in one of her best roles to date, he found it to be a frustrating experience. No one seemed Lucy Morgan in Orson Welles’s adaptation of Booth to fit the part. One Sunday at Zanuck’s pool a friend sug­ Tarkington’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Magnificent gested that Baxter could play the role. At first Zanuck Amhersons. Tarkington, Baxter, and Richard Bennett, who dismissed the idea but then decided to let director Edmund played Major Amberson, were all Indiana natives. Some Goulding meet with Baxter to see what he thought. critics place this film in the same category of greatness as Goulding was impressed enough to give Baxter a test, and Welles’s Citizen Kane. Baxter called a rough cut of the film she got the part. She always said that she won the role “an utter masterpiece,” but the released version was cut because Sophie’s background was similar to her own—a drastically by RKO and did not do well at the box office. midwestern girl used to attending country-club dances. Unfortunately much of what was cut were scenes that fea­ Baxter’s portrayal of Sophie gave the screen one of its tured Baxter. During the film’s shooting, Frank Lloyd most memorable characters of the 1940s. Sophie is a Wright visited the set. Although Baxter had called the sets gentle young mother who loses her husband and child magnificent, her grandfather had quite another opinion. in an automobile accident. When she becomes a tragic “The old man used to visit us all the time we were shoot­ alcoholic prostitute in Paris, an old friend (played by ing and made withering remarks about the sets,” Welles Tyrone Power) unsuccessfully attempts to rehabilitate noted. “I kept saying, ‘But Mr. Wright, we agree with you. her. The cast was full of highly respected actors, includ­ That’s the whole point.’ But he couldn’t get over how ing Gene Tierney, Herbert Marshall, and Hoosier Clifton awful it was that people ever lived in those kind of houses.” Webb. The film marks the only time two Hoosiers were In 1944 Baxter gave an outstanding performance as both nominated for best supporting Oscars in the same a girl with a false smile and a sick mind in Guest in the film. While Baxter won her first and only Academy House. Also that year she appeared in Sunday Dinner for Award, Webb lost out to Harold Russell’s performance a Soldier. A romance blossomed between Baxter and in The Best Years of Our Lives. Both Webb and Baxter, costar John Hodiak. They were married on 7 July 1946 however, won Golden Globes for best supporting roles. in the hom e o f Baxter’s parents. A daughter, Katrina, was While Baxter’s performance in The Razor’s Edge earned born 9 July 1951. Shortly after her daughter’s birth, her a supporting-actress Oscar, her 1950 role opposite TRACES Fall 2003 11.