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A photo of Ann Sheridan

Ann Sheridan 1915 - 1967

Ann Sheridan was born on February 21, 1915 in Denton, Denton County, Texas United States, and died at age 51 years old on January 20, 1967 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, CA. Ann Sheridan was buried in 1967 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Cremated and ashed intered years later, 2005., in Hollywood. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Ann Sheridan .
Ann Sheridan
February 21, 1915
Denton, Denton County, Texas, United States
January 20, 1967
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, United States
Female
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Ann Sheridan's History: 1915 - 1967

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  • Introduction

    Popular Movie Star Ann Sheridan.
  • 02/21
    1915

    Birthday

    February 21, 1915
    Birthdate
    Denton, Denton County, Texas United States
    Birthplace
  • Professional Career

    Ann Sheridan Born Clara Lou Sheridan February 21, 1915, Denton, Texas, U.S. Died January 21, 1967 (aged 51), Los Angeles, California, U.S. Resting place Hollywood Forever Cemetery Occupations Actress-singer Years active 1934–1967 Spouses Edward Norris (m. 1936; div. 1938)​ George Brent (m. 1942; div. 1943)​ Scott McKay (m. 1966)​ Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan (February 21, 1915 – January 21, 1967) was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films San Quentin (1937) with Humphrey Bogart, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Bogart, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Bogart, City for Conquest (1940) with Cagney and Elia Kazan, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis, Kings Row (1942) with Ronald Reagan, Nora Prentiss (1947), and I Was a Male War Bride (1949) with Cary Grant. Early life Clara Lou Sheridan was born in Denton, Texas, on February 21, 1915, the youngest of five children (Kitty, Pauline, Mabel, and George) of mechanic George W. Sheridan and Lula Stewart (née Warren). According to Sheridan, her father was a grandnephew of Civil War Union general Philip Sheridan. She was active in dramatics at Denton High School and at North Texas State Teachers College. She also sang with the college's stage band and played basketball on the North Texas women's basketball team. Then, in 1933, Sheridan won the prize of a bit part in an upcoming Paramount film, Search for Beauty, when her sister Kitty entered Sheridan's photograph into a beauty contest. Career - Paramount After the release of Search for Beauty in 1934, Paramount put the 19-year-old under contract at a starting salary of $75 a week ($1,641 today), where she played mostly uncredited bit parts for the next two years. She can be glimpsed in the 1934 films, and if credited, as Clara Lou Sheridan: Bolero, Come On Marines!, Murder at the Vanities, Shoot the Works, Kiss and Make-Up with Cary Grant, The Notorious Sophie Lang, College Rhythm (directed by Norman Taurog whom Sheridan admired), Ladies Should Listen with Cary Grant, You Belong to Me, Wagon Wheels, The Lemon Drop Kid with Lee Tracy, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Ready for Love, Limehouse Blues with George Raft and Anna May Wong, and One Hour Late. Along with fellow contractees, Sheridan worked with Paramount's drama coach Nina Mouise and performed on the studio lot in such plays as The Milky Way and The Pursuit of Happiness. While in The Milky Way, Paramount decided to change her first name from Clara Lou to the same as her character Ann. Sheridan was then cast in the film Behold My Wife! (1934) at the behest of director and friend Mitchell Leisen. The role provided two standout scenes for the actress, including one in which her character commits suicide, to which she attributed Paramount's keeping her under contract. She continued with bit parts in Enter Madame (1935) with Elissa Landi and Cary Grant, Home on the Range (1935) with Randolph Scott and Evelyn Brent, and Rumba (1935) with George Raft and Carole Lombard, until her first lead role in Car 99 (1935), with Fred MacMurray. "No acting, it was just playing the lead, that's all", she later said. She next had a support role as the romantic interest in Rocky Mountain Mystery (1935), a Randolph Scott Western. She then appeared in Mississippi (1935) with Bing Crosby and W. C. Fields, The Glass Key (1935) with George Raft in a brief speaking role for which she was billed as "Nurse" in the cast list at the end of the film, and (having one line) The Crusades (1935) with Loretta Young. In her last picture under her deal with Paramount, the studio loaned her out to Poverty Row production company Talisman to make The Red Blood of Courage (1935) with Kermit Maynard. After this, Paramount declined to renew her contract. Sheridan made Fighting Youth (1935) at Universal and then signed a contract with Warner Bros. in 1936. Warner Bros. Sheridan and James Cagney in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) Sheridan's career prospects began to improve at her new studio. Her early films for Warner Bros. included Sing Me a Love Song (1936); Black Legion (1937) with Humphrey Bogart; The Great O'Malley (1937) with Pat O'Brien and Bogart, her first real break; San Quentin (1937), with O'Brien and Bogart, singing for the first time in a film; and Wine, Women and Horses (1937) with Barton MacLane. Sheridan moved into B picture leads: The Footloose Heiress (1937); Alcatraz Island (1937) with John Litel; and She Loved a Fireman (1937) with Dick Foran for director John Farrow. She was a lead in The Patient in Room 18 (1937) and its sequel Mystery House (1938). Sheridan was in Little Miss Thoroughbred (1938) with Litel for Farrow and supported Dick Powell in Cowboy from Brooklyn (1938). Universal borrowed her for a support role in Letter of Introduction (1938) at the behest of director John M. Stahl. For Farrow, she was in Broadway Musketeers (1938), a remake of Three on a Match (1932). Sheridan's notices in Letter of Introduction impressed Warner Bros. executives and she began to get roles in better quality pictures at her own studio starting with Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), wherein she played James Cagney's love interest; Bogart, O'Brien and the Dead End Kids had supporting roles. The film was a big hit and critically acclaimed. Sheridan was reunited with the Dead End Kids in They Made Me a Criminal (1938) starring John Garfield. She was third-billed in the Western Dodge City (1939), playing a saloon owner opposite Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The film was another success. Oomph girl Sheridan in 1940 In March 1939, Warner Bros. announced Sheridan had been voted by a committee of 25 men as the actress with the most "oomph" in America. "Oomph" was described as "a certain indefinable something that commands male interest". She received as many as 250 marriage proposals from fans in a single week. Sheridan reportedly loathed the sobriquet that made her a popular pin-up girl in the early 1940s. However, she expressed in a February 25, 1940, news story distributed by the Associated Press that she no longer "bemoaned the "oomph" tag." She continued, "But I'm sorry now. I know if it hadn't been for "oomph" I'd probably still be in the chorus." This was later referenced and spoofed on the 1941 animated short Hollywood Steps Out. Stardom Sheridan co-starred with Dick Powell in Naughty but Nice (1939) and played a wacky heiress in Winter Carnival (1939). She was top billed in Indianapolis Speedway (1939) with O'Brien and Angels Wash Their Faces (1939) with the Dead End Kids and Ronald Reagan. Castle on the Hudson (1940) put her opposite Garfield and O'Brien. Magazine ad for The Doughgirls (1944) Sheridan's first real starring vehicle was It All Came True (1940), a musical comedy costarring Bogart and Jeffrey Lynn. She introduced the song "Angel in Disguise". Sheridan and Cagney were reunited in Torrid Zone (1940) with O'Brien in support. She was with George Raft, Bogart, and Ida Lupino in They Drive by Night (1940), a smash-hit trucking melodrama. Sheridan was back with Cagney for City for Conquest (1941) and then made Honeymoon for Three (1941), a comedy with George Brent. Sheridan in 1950 Sheridan did two lighter films: Navy Blues (1941), a musical comedy, and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis, wherein she played a character modeled on Gertrude Lawrence. She then made Kings Row (1942), in which she received top billing playing opposite Ronald Reagan, Robert Cummings, and Betty Field. It was a major success and one of Sheridan's most memorable films. Sheridan and Reagan were reunited for Juke Girl (1942) released about six weeks after Kings Row. She was in the war film Wings for the Eagle (1942) and made a comedy with Jack Benny, George Washington Slept Here (1943). She played a Norwegian resistance fighter in Edge of Darkness (1943) with Errol Flynn and was one of the many Warner Bros., stars who had cameos in Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). She was the heroine of a novel, Ann Sheridan and the Sign of the Sphinx, written by Kathryn Heisenfelt and published by Whitman Publishing Company in 1943. While the heroine of the story was identified as a famous actress, the stories were entirely fictitious. The story was probably written for a young teenage audience and is reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. It is part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", 16 books published between 1941 and 1947 that always featured a film actress as the heroine. Sheridan was given the lead in the musical Shine On, Harvest Moon (1944), playing Nora Bayes, opposite Dennis Morgan. She was in the comedy The Doughgirls (1944). Sheridan was absent from screens for over a year, touring with the USO to perform in front of the troops as far afield as China. She returned in One More Tomorrow (1946) with Morgan. She had an excellent role in the noir Nora Prentiss (1947), which was a hit. It was followed by The Unfaithful (1948), a remake of The Letter, and Silver River (1948), a Western melodrama with Errol Flynn. Leo McCarey borrowed her to support Gary Cooper in Good Sam (1948). She was meant to star in Flamingo Road.[27] She then left Warner Bros., saying: "I wasn't at all satisfied with the scripts they offered me."[28] Freelance star Her role in I Was a Male War Bride (1949), directed by Howard Hawks and starring Cary Grant, was another success. In 1950, she appeared on the ABC musical television series Stop the Music. She made Stella (1950), a comedy with Victor Mature at Fox. In April 1949, she announced she wanted to produce Second Lady, a film based on a story by Eleanore Griffin. She was going to make My Forbidden Past (originally titled Carriage Entrance) at RKO. They fired her and Sheridan sued for $250,000 (equivalent to $3.1 million today) The New York Times reported the amount as $350,000 ($4.3 million today). Sheridan ultimately won $55,162 ($680,000 today). Universal Sheridan made Woman on the Run (1950), a noir also starring Dennis O'Keefe which she produced. She wanted to make a film called Her Secret Diary. Woman on the Run was distributed by Universal, and Sheridan signed a contract with that studio. While there, she made Steel Town (1952), Just Across the Street (1952), and Take Me to Town (1953), a comedy with Sterling Hayden that was the first film directed by Douglas Sirk in the United States. Later career Wagon Train in 1962 Pistols 'n' Petticoats Sheridan starred with Glenn Ford in Appointment in Honduras (1953), directed by Jacques Tourneur. She appeared opposite Steve Cochran in Come Next Spring (1956) and was one of several stars in MGM's The Opposite Sex (1956), a remake of The Women starring June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Sheridan and Ann Miller. Her last film, Woman and the Hunter (1957), was shot in Africa. She performed in stage tours of Kind Sir (1958) and Odd Man In (1959), and The Time of Your Life at the Brussels World Fair in 1958. In all three shows, she acted with Scott McKay, whom she later married. In 1962, she played the lead in the Western series Wagon Train episode titled "The Mavis Grant Story". In the mid-1960s, Sheridan appeared on the NBC soap opera Another World.[34] Her final role was as Henrietta Hanks in the television comedy Western series Pistols 'n' Petticoats, which was filmed while she became increasingly ill in 1966, and was broadcast on CBS on Saturday nights. The 19th episode of the series, "Beware the Hangman", aired as scheduled on the same day that she died in 1967. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Ann Sheridan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7024 Hollywood Boulevard. Death In 1966, Sheridan began starring in a new television series, a Western-themed comedy called Pistols 'n' Petticoats. She became ill during the filming and died of esophageal cancer with massive liver metastases at age 51 on January 21, 1967, in Los Angeles. She was cremated and her ashes were stored at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles until they were interred in a niche in the Chapel Columbarium at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 2005. Filmography Year Film Role Notes 1934 Search for Beauty Dallas Beauty Winner uncredited 1934 Bolero Minor Role uncredited 1934 Come on Marines! Loretta 1934 Murder at the Vanities Earl Carroll Girl uncredited 1934 Many Happy Returns Chorine uncredited 1934 Shoot the Works Hanratty's Secretary uncredited 1934 Kiss and Make Up Beautician 1934 The Notorious Sophie Lang Mannequin uncredited 1934 Ladies Should Listen Adele 1934 You Belong to Me Wedding Party Guest uncredited 1934 Wagon Wheels Young Lady uncredited 1934 The Lemon Drop Kid Minor Role uncredited 1934 Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch Town Girl uncredited 1934 College Rhythm Chorine / Gloves Salesgirl uncredited 1934 Ready for Love Priscilla at Basket Social uncredited 1934 Star Night at the Cocoanut Grove Sands of the Desert Model Short; uncredited 1934 Behold My Wife Mary White 1934 Limehouse Blues Minor Role uncredited 1934 One Hour Late Girl uncredited 1935 Enter Madame Flora's Shipboard Friend 1935 Home on the Range Singer 1935 Rumba Chorus Girl uncredited 1935 Car 99 Mary Adams 1935 Rocky Mountain Mystery Rita Ballard 1935 Mississippi Schoolgirl uncredited 1935 Red Blood of Courage Elizabeth Henry 1935 The Glass Key Nurse 1935 The Crusades Christian Slave Girl uncredited 1935 Hollywood Extra Girl Genevieve Documentary short 1935 Fighting Youth Carol Arlington 1937 Sing Me a Love Song 1937 Black Legion Betty Grogan 1937 The Great O'Malley Judy Nolan 1937 San Quentin May Kennedy aka May De Villiers 1937 The Footloose Heiress Kay Allyn 1937 Wine, Women and Horses Valerie 1937 Alcatraz Island Flo Allen 1937 She Loved a Fireman Marjorie "Margie" Shannon 1938 The Patient in Room 18 Sarah Keate 1938 Mystery House Sarah Keate 1938 Out Where the Stars Begin Herself Short; uncredited 1938 Little Miss Thoroughbred Madge Perry Morgan 1938 Cowboy from Brooklyn Maxine Chadwick 1938 Letter of Introduction Lydia Hoyt 1938 Broadway Musketeers Fay Reynolds Dowling 1938 Angels with Dirty Faces Laury Martin 1939 They Made Me a Criminal Goldie 1939 Dodge City Ruby Gilman 1939 Naughty but Nice Zelda Manion 1939 Indianapolis Speedway "Frankie" Merrick 1939 Winter Carnival Jill Baxter 1939 The Angels Wash Their Faces Joy Ryan 1940 Castle on the Hudson Kay 1940 It All Came True Sarah Jane Ryan 1940 Torrid Zone Lee Donley 1940 They Drive by Night Cassie Hartley 1940 City for Conquest Peggy Nash 1941 Honeymoon for Three Anne Rogers 1941 Navy Blues Marge Jordan 1942 The Man Who Came to Dinner Lorraine Sheldon 1942 Kings Row Randy Monaghan 1942 Juke Girl Lola Mears 1942 Wings for the Eagle Roma Maple 1942 George Washington Slept Here Connie Fuller 1943 Edge of Darkness Karen Stensgard 1943 Thank Your Lucky Stars Ann Sheridan 1944 Shine On, Harvest Moon Nora Bayes 1944 The Doughgirls Edna Stokes Cadman 1946 Cinderella Jones Red Cross Nurse uncredited 1946 One More Tomorrow Christie Sage 1947 The Unfaithful Chris Hunter 1947 Nora Prentiss Nora Prentiss 1948 Silver River Georgia Moore 1948 Good Sam Lu Clayton 1949 I Was a Male War Bride 1st Lt. Catherine Gates 1950 Stella Stella Bevans 1950 Woman on the Run Eleanor Johnson also co-producer 1952 Steel Town "Red" McNamara 1952 Just Across the Street Henrietta Smith 1953 Take Me to Town Vermilion O'Toole aka Mae Madison 1953 Appointment in Honduras Sylvia Sheppard 1956 Come Next Spring Bess Ballot 1956 Calling Terry Conway Terry Conway TV movie 1956 The Opposite Sex Amanda Penrose 1957 Woman and the Hunter Laura Dodds 1962 Wagon Train Mavis Grant TV series Episode: "The Mavis Grant Story" 1967 The Far Out West Henrietta "Hank" Hanks archive footage
  • Personal Life & Family

    Personal life Sheridan married actor Edward Norris on August 16, 1936, in Ensenada, Mexico. They separated a year later and divorced in 1939. On January 5, 1942, she married fellow Warner Bros. star George Brent, who co-starred with her in Honeymoon for Three (1941); they divorced exactly one year later. Following her divorce from Brent, she had a long-term relationship with publicist Steve Hannagan that lasted until his death in 1953. Hannagan bequeathed Sheridan $218,399 (equivalent to $2.4 million today). Sheridan engaged in a romantic affair with Mexican actor Rodolfo Acosta, with whom she appeared in 1953's Appointment in Honduras. She and the married Acosta shared an apartment in Mexico City for several years, and Sheridan was charged with criminal adultery in Mexican federal court in October 1956, following an accusation by Acosta's wife, Jeanine Cohen Acosta. Mexican authorities issued a warrant for Sheridan's arrest. Nothing came of the criminal charges, and the relationship ended c. 1958. On June 5, 1966, Sheridan married actor Scott McKay, who was with her when she died, seven months later.
  • 01/20
    1967

    Death

    January 20, 1967
    Death date
    Cancer
    Cause of death
    Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California United States
    Death location
  • 1967

    Gravesite & Burial

    1967
    Funeral date
    Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Cremated and ashed intered years later, 2005., in Hollywood, California U.S.A.
    Burial location
  • Obituary

    Ann Sheridan's New York Times Obituary Ann Sheridan, Actress, 51, Dies; Career Spanned 33-Year Period 'Man Who Came to Dinner" and 'Kings Row' Among Her Many Films Hollywood, January 21 (AP) Ann Sheridan, the actress who was once billed as "the oomph girl" died today after a long illness in her San Fernando Valley home. She would have been 52 years old on Feb. 21. The cause of her death was not divulged. Miss Sheridan had recently returned to the limelight as the star of the television series, "Pistols 'n' Petticoats" on the Columbia Broadcasting System. Beauty Contest Winner Ann Sheridan, with her reddish-gold hair and youthful face and figure, was one of the very few beauty contest winners ever to be heard from again after arriving in Hollywood. She was one of 33 young girls brought to Hollywood in 1933 by Paramount Pictures as part of a promotional campaign for a picture called "Search for Beauty," and she was the only one who developed a career out of this publicity stunt. During a Hollywood career in movies and television that spanned more than 30 years, she was often suspected by studios - or went on strike as she used to call it - either because she felt she was not getting enough money or did not like the roles chosen for her. In 1941, she went on a six-month strike against Warner Brothers because she wanted more than the $600 a week they were paying. But she lost and went back to work. After World War II, she stayed out of pictures for 14 months because she was not allowed to choose her own roles. She took another sabbatical in 1956. But eight years ago, her film career waning, Miss Sheridan turned to the stage and toured in "Kind Sir" with Scott McKay, who she married last June. At Home in Many Roles In her acting roles - which began with a one-picture contract she signed after winning the beauty contest -- Miss Sheridan was equally adept as a schoolmarm, dance hall queen, gangster's moll, or comedienne. Before moving to Warner Brothers in 1939, she made five Westerns for Paramount, then quit to freelance. As a relative newcomer to the screen in 1935, Miss Sheridan played in "Car 99" the story of a manhunt, opposite Fred MacMurray. Another early role cast her as a rowdy frontier dance-hall hostess with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in "Dodge City." By the early 1940's Miss Sheridan had reached stardom. One of her best-known roles was hat of the feline actress in "The Man Who Came to Dinner" who tries to steal a young man from an unsophisticated Bette Davis. Also in that 1942 screen version of the George S. Kaufman-Moss Hart were Monty Woolley, Jimmy Durante and Billie Burke. In the same year, she starred as the wife of Jack Benny in "George Washington Slept Here" which is revived each Washington's Birthday on television. Miss Sheridan appeared opposite Zachary Scott in "The Unfaithful" and James Cagney in "Angels with Dirty Faces." In the wartime comedy, "I Was a Male War Bride" her leading man was Cary Grant. Among her other films were "Kings Row" -- one of several in which she starred with Ronald Reagan -- "Shine on Harvest Moon" with Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson, and "The Opposite Sex." In 1940, the Harvard Lampoon created a stir by characterizing her as the actress who was "the most unlikely to succeed," to which she quipped back, "Harvard is the home of the unadulterated heel -- and you may quote me." She often admitted that she had no idea what "oomph" meant and described it as "what a fat man says when he leans over to tie his shoelace in a telephone booth." Ann Sheridan was born Clara Lou Sheridan on Feb. 21, 1915, in Denton, Texas, a small town northwest of Dallas. Miss Sheridan first married S. Edward Norris, a stage actor, in August 1936. They were divorced in October 1937 having separated after just 375 days of marriage. Her second marriage to George Brent, another actor, on Jan. 5, 1942, lasted only 263 days. In the 1940's she was linked romantically to the publicity agent Steve Hannagan. They were often reported about to be married, but Hannagan died a bachelor in 1953. He left Miss Sheridan nearly $250,000.
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8 Memories, Stories & Photos about Ann

Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
Movie Star.
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Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
Sexy and interesting.
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Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
Classic beauty.
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Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
Had great co-stars like Bogart and Cagney.
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Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
Her profile.
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Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
Studio shot.
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Ann Sheridan's Family Tree & Friends

Ann Sheridan's Family Tree

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Ann's Friends

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