Eleanor Jean Parker was signed by Warner Brothers in 1941, when she was 18. She was nominated three times for the Oscar for Best Actress in the 1950s. One of her most memorable roles was that of Baroness Elsa von Schraeder in The Sound of Music. She died of a heart attack on December 17, 2009.
About Eleanor Parker in brief
Eleanor Jean Parker was an American actress who appeared in some 80 movies and television series. Parker was signed by Warner Brothers in 1941, when she was 18. She was nominated three times for the Oscar for Best Actress in the 1950s: for Caged, Detective Story, and Interrupted Melody. One of her most memorable roles was that of Baroness Elsa von Schraeder in The Sound of Music. She appeared in a number of school plays and went to Martha’s Vineyard to work on her acting before moving to California to focus on films. Her actual film debut was as Nurse Ryan in the short film Soldiers in White in 1942. She was considered enough of a name to be given a cameo in Hollywood Canteen. Warners gave her the choice role of Mildred Rogers in a new version of Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage ; although director Edmund Goulding called Parker one of the five greatest actresses in America, previews were not favorable, and the film sat on the shelf for two years before being released to an underwhelming reception. In 1953, Parker called it her favorite role. She had two years off, during which time she married and had a baby. She turned down a role in The Hasty Heart, which she wanted to do, but it would have meant going to England, and she did not want to leave her baby alone during its first year. She made the comedy Voice of the Turtle with Ronald Reagan and was in an adaptation of The Woman in White.
She refused to appear in Somewhere in the City so Warners suspended her again; Virginia Mayo played the role. In 1947, she returned in Chain Lightning with Humphrey Bogart. She won the Volpi Cup for Best actress at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for an earlier film, Caged. She heard about a film Warners were making about a woman in prison and actively lobbied for it, and got it made. In 1949, she said in an interview: ‘I want to keep away from such assignments, as I can’t even on now, even though they mean exercising your skill and talent in acting, as some may say, on some assignments, they mean exercise your skill in acting’ She died of a heart attack on December 17, 2009. She is survived by her husband and two children, Robert Parker, Jr. and Lola Jean Parker, the daughter of Lola and Lester Day Parker. She died at the age of 89 in a nursing home in Los Angeles, California, on December 18, 2009, after a long battle with cancer. She also had a son, Robert, Jr., with whom she had a daughter, Eleanor Jean Parker Jr., and a son-in-law, Robert David Parker, III. Her husband died in a car accident on December 19, 2011, in California, after which she said, ‘I can’t regret anything that might happen to me professionally’
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