Who was the best ever Best Actress Oscar winner, by decade? 1940s edition

Link to 1930's poll if you still want to cast a vote..

Joanie will be pleased

Jane Wyman is pretty darn excellent in "Johnny Belinda", also considering that she doesn't speak a word in the film. Not even a Patty Duke "wa- wah"

Bette Davis gave one of the finest performances ever recorded on film in The Letter but she lost to Rogers. She had already won two Oscars in the previous five years so I doubt she had any shot of winning another so soon.

[quote]Mildred Pearce

Oh, fucking dear.

Was Ginger any good in Kitty Foyle? I've always heard it criticised as it cost Fontaine the Rebecca win

We always vote for the role and movie we recognize!

Rogers is good, if I recall -- I saw it years ago. This was also seen as a major break from her dancing days with Fred Astaire. She was always a good actress, but frankly, she's even better in comedy, especially "The Major and the Minor".

Well this is closer than the 30s race!

Loretta is actually quite good in "The Farmer's Daughter", but the win itself was a big upset that year. It's a comedy, so again, those are usually not thought worthy. She's pretty delightful in it, and was usually a consistently very good actress. Love her in "The Bishop's Wife", "The Stranger" etc.

Didn’t care for Rogers. But either Jane Wyman or Olivia de Havilland.

Wyman, Livvie #2 and Mrs. Al Steele were the only truly worthy winners. The other women gave performances that were average to awful.

It should have been Barbara Stanwyck for Double Indemnity.

Ingrid Bergman, Notorious. Very natural and uncompromisingly focused.

Livy for THE HEIRESS, hands down.

So true, r13.

"Bette Davis? Get out of here before I kill you."

"Oh this uniform, Miss Veda gave it to me."

"She makes me wear it in case I have to answer the doorbell."

You could at least have been me billing! I mean, at least no one asked me about birthin' babies, Miss Mildred. Plus everyone knew who I was by then.

"given" me billing.

Wasn't Greer any good in Mrs Miniver?

"Oh I'm sorry I did that, I'd rather have cut off my hand" lol

[quote]Wasn't Greer any good in Mrs Miniver?

Not nearly as good as good as Greer Garson "thought" she was.

Her Oscar acceptance speech lasted nearly an hour.

Greer always denied that but admitted "she lost track of time" during her speech.

After the movie wrapped, Greer married the actor who played her son...pretending to the press that they were "actually very close in age", which was her real performance.

Mildred, deserves this award....

just for slapping that little cunt Veda twice in one movie

Veda was a nasty piece of shite

Jennifer Jones's best scene.

Rosalind Russell should win the poll for 1940's HIS GIRL FRIDAY but she's not listed and didn't even earn an Oscar nomination.

Joan Crawford is winning simply because that's the film listed that most Dataloungers have actually seen.

It's a travesty she's beating Olivia de Havilland in THE HEIRESS. It's like comparing Coca-Cola to fine wine.

Travesty is not a synonym for tragedy, R28. The disproportionate affection for Joan Crawford’s performance might be a travesty *of* something (justice, good taste), but travesty on its own simply means a distortion or misrepresentation…

Joan was much better in [italic]Humoresque[/italic]! Ann Blyth stole her thunder in MP.

Joan should have done Broadway

Shirley Booth — “Come Back, Little Sheba”

Not the forties, r32.

Coca-Cola r28? How dare you!

Was Olivia any good in "To Each Their Own"?

I thought Ingrid was very good in Gaslight

Love Olivia in The Heiress but Jennifer Jones was luminous as Bernadette. I can’t picture anyone else in that role.

Yes, Olivia is very good in the rather soap opera-ish, but enjoyable "To Each His Own".

R38. She was fine, but Celia Johnson should have won it that year for her exquisite work in “Brief Encounter.”

I agree R39, Olivia didn't have the talent to be a double Oscar winner. The Hearess was her best work. Brief Encounter is still a classic.

*The Heiress

Olivia's first Oscar for that crappy weepie picture was a joke. She gave a better performance that year in that twin sisters movie she did.

Between Joanie and Livvie now

Jane Wyman pretty terrific in "Johnny Belinda".

Is Joan Fontaine not good in Suspicion?

She was better in [italic]Rebecca[/italic] r45.

Right vote now

They should have waited so that they could award Olivia for “The Snake Pit” instead of "To Each His Own".

Barbara Stanwyck, Double Indemnity.

Oh right, no Oscar. I was just sad that Barbara was not included.

This thread is why I love DL.

All things golden age of Hollywood.

Everyone on this thread is an 80 year old Klan Granny.

^ No, we just have better taste. Your idea of a classic movie must be DOLITTLE, with a finale that features RDJ pulling shit out of a digital dragon's asshole.

Olivia gave a much better 1946 performance in The Dark Mirror. To Each His Own was just a forgettable and super sappy woman's picture.

Any further thoughts?

No love for Ginger “fuzzy face” Rogers. Not as a dramatic actress, or anything else FTM. Hepburn for [italic]The Philadelphia Story[/italic] or Bette Davis in [italic]The Letter[/italic] were much more deserving than Rogers’ lame one-note performance.

To R13, I was gonna type the same damn thing. Stunning performance by Stanwyck. She should be the 1940's WINNER I love The Heiress, but I gotta give my vote to Ingrid Bergman.

Jennifer Fucking Jones.

Barbara Stanwyck always played characters who were unlikable and she was a freelancer; this hurt her chances of getting her Oscar. The were some performances that she gave in films that didn’t even get her a nomination.

Some great performances

R59 nails it, Stanwyck never had a studio behind her and she rarely did obvious Oscar bait like Johnny Belinda.

Joan Fontaine in a league of her own quakity wise and difficult to beat from this list in my opinion!

"Quakity" is now my favorite word.

r63 Ooopps a daisy!! But thank you lol!

Fontaine's Oscar was a joke. Suspicion is one of Hitchcock's weakest films and her performance felt like a paler version of her Rebecca one.

"Has anyone ever told you. . .you have an indefinable, mysterious, attractive quakity?"

"They usually just say I remind them of Joan Fontaine."

From the actual winners list: Olivia for The Heiress. Catherine grows in front of you. She starts as a naive ingenue who's lost in her own pink world. Emboldened by her unrealistic romantic fanatises, she disobeys her father only to be dealt with the harsh hand of reality. She submits to reality, hardens her shell and becomes cynical. When she bars the door at the end, she's closing that part of her life. The stupid little girl who ever believed in chivalry and romance. A magnificent transformation and role.

But the real winner, like the other have mentioned is Celia Johnson for "Brief encounter". One of the most heartbreaking movie roles in the 40s. It's dramatic effect is what I expected Casablanca to have. The fact that such a "scandalous" role was nominated during the apex of the Hays should tell you all you need to know.

Also Phyllis Dietrichson was the OG bad bitch.

A really underrated film of Joan Fontaine is [italic]Letter From an Unknown Woman[/italic] from 1948. She was ethereal in it. And so was Louis Jourdan. A really sweet, tragic love story directed by Max Ophuls.

Her win for [italic]Suspicion[/italic] was compensation for losing to Ginger Rogers the previous year.

Why did big Ginger win for a shitty part, against stiff competition? Was she operating a ducking station beside the Oscar poll booth?

*sucking!

R69 she was one of RKO's biggest money makers in the 30s. Also her dramatic acting mainly involved her being a working class girl which set her apart from the glitz and glamour roles her contemporaries chose. This made her more relatable to the audiences.

But ya anyone with a pair of eyes could see that Joan Fontaine should've won that year. The order imo goes like this: Joan > Bette > Rosalind (who wasn't even nominated) > Katherine > Ginger

They all have such elegant pseudonyms - except Ginger.

Joan shimmered as the second Mrs. de Winter...when she answered the phone in the study - "Mrs. de Winter - she's been dead for over a year...", she delivered that line without any guile. She was great. A bit fluttery in places, a la Jennifer Jones, but a very earnest and straightforward performance.

Ginger - she had one good scene where she lost her baby.

Vivien Leigh deserved her second best actress Oscar for her beautiful, delicate turn in Waterloo Bridge,.

Hepburn in 1940 for The Philadelphia Story.

Speaking of stage names, the only three women on that list who used their birth names were Greer Garson, Dame Olivia and Ingrid Bergman.

It's a shame Vivien Leigh didn't win or get a nod for That Hamilton Woman. She was superb and her face expressed emotions so beautifully.