Actress with the most tragic personal life

Um, Marilyn Monroe?

Frances Farmer

Moi. Definitely moi.

Poor Viola.

Bradley Cooper?

Anne Heche

Vance

What am I - chopped liver?

Romy "Sissi" Schneider

I’ve always thought Linda Darnell was particularly tragic.

I know… MARY!!!

Brittany Murphy

Why have I been omitted from that tragic poll?

Jennifer Hudson

This poll is worthless without Frances Farmer.

Vivien Leigh and Gene Tierney were in and out of mental facilities and had ECTs done on them a few times. But then again, so did Marilyn and Frances Farmer. So who's to say he was the more tragic.

I don't know if it's true that Frances had a lobotomy. So many people in her circle denied it happened.

[quote]So who's to say he was the more tragic.

*who

Gene Tierney, Susan Hayward, Natalie Wood, Linda Darnell, and Jennifer Jones were all suicidal. Debbie Reynolds claims that Joan Crawford committed suicide at the end.

Linda was also an alcoholic and infertile. Much like Judy, she married young to escape her stage mom but the older man she married turned her into a raging alcoholic.

Joan and Rita were both sexually abused, Joan by her stepfather (who she believed was her father) and Rita by her father.

Rita of course had Alzheimer's and Hedy was a kleptomaniac and one of the first people to get a facelift.

Joan and Vivien were both known for cruising for men late at night. Vivien was diagnosed as a nymphomaniac.

Gene due to what happened to her daughter.

Liza with a Z

I don't think she's the most tragic, but I've always felt bad for Tatum O'Neil. Imagine being a kid and winning an Oscar, and having an asshole of a father being jealous. Taking her to Studio 54 and God only knows where else. Same thing for Drew Barrymore.

I chose Rita because the others seemed to have found love at least once in their lives. I don't think anyone treated her well. And her father molested her.

Didn't all 5 of Rita's husbands physically abuse her and emotionally abuse her as well?

I have to add Aretha Franklin. Scroll-down to Personal Life: nothin' but heartache, honey.

It's a toss up between Judy and Natalie.

In many of her performances and interviews, Natalie never seemed very happy.

Judy should have sued the studios for making her a raging drug addict but the drinking is all on her. She needed rehab but the options for treatment were not what they are today. But at least she gave us Joey.

Not me I actually LOVE MY LIFE!

r24 Not really an actress.

Vivien was diagnosed as a nymphomaniac.

she was bipolar and it caused her to be hypersexual when manic

Marilyn Monroe:

mother was mentally ill never knew father Marilyn was mentally ill mother put in mental home had 12 different foster homes misused drugs and alcohol as a means to self medicate admitted to mental hospital used and abused by men multiple miscarriages and couldn't have children failed marriages really had no family mental illness steadily got worse suicide/ possibly murdered died young indignity of autopsy/death photos distributed

sorry, forgot to double space

When Judy was working on her last film, I Could Go on Singing, they took away her passport so she couldn't flee the production in England. When shooting first started, the only way she knew how to get out of England without a passport was by exiting the world and trying to commit suicide. By the end of the product, she had a second suicide attempt when she learned there was a camera flaw in one of her performances and she'd have to shoot it again.

I think of Judy as more of a singer than an actress (and that is not meant as an insult), so I'd probably pick Vivien Leigh as the most tragic, she's the best screen Anna Karenina by far and I think she really understood the character.

Hayden Panettiere if you've heard the stories.

Gail Russell

Dorothy Dandridge

Jennifer Jones was married to abusive alcoholic Robert Walker. Her affair with David A. Selznick gave her a bad reputation along with his domineering personality when it come to micromanaging her career. She was mentally ill and suicidal and her daughter with Selznick actually did commit suicide, although it prompted Jones to spread suicide awareness.

She was also heavily high-strung and neurotic. The stories are all out there about how she'd have multiple versions of an outfit so at any party, she'd slip out after an hour and completely bathe before wearing an identical copy of her outfit. This would be her pattern about 3-4 times at every party so she could always appear fresh and clean.

My vote goes to Judy though because stealing her Oscar, especially right after she just gave birth, was heartless. To this day it's considered the greatest Oscar snub. Judy should have made history as the 2nd actress after Joan to accept her Oscar in bed.

Rita Hayworth was sexually abused and beaten by her father throughout her childhood, the same father she was forced to dance with and be sexually provocative. He was a repulsive human being who turned her into a performing animal, making her scrounge for the family's food between performances.

She had a few good years with Orson Wells then was hit with early onset alzheimer's.

Orson Welles later on said he didn't treat Rita that well either (although perhaps better in comparison to the rest of her husbands). That he knew she needed something more but he didn't have it in him to give it to her.

Rita also didn't care for her noir image as Gilda. She said the only movies she enjoyed making were her musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

What about me! No one asked me how I was!

Linda Darnell was similarly not very enthusiastic about her filmography. She said everything she made was trash except for No Way Out.

She was widely believed to earn Oscar nominations for Fallen Angel and A Letter to Three Wives but she was snubbed for both. Forever Amber was supposed to catapult her to global stardom as had occurred with Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind but she never took off. The Barefoot Contessa was written for her but her then bf at the time, Joseph Mank, dumped her and hired Ava Gardner instead. She wasn't even aware until the casting was announced.

She was planning on making her comeback right before she died.

Jayne Mansfield was pretty tragic, at the end of course.

G is tragic, but I wouldn't call her an actress

R40 that’s pretty sad. She had a number of great movies - Unfaithfully Yours, A Letter to Three Wives, Zorro, No Way Out, My Darling Clementine, The Song of Bernadette, Fallen Angel and Hangover Square… most actresses would kill for a role in a good movie- she had many.

She had a darker look about her. I often wonder if she was passing.

There’s many actresses under contract to Paramount that seemed to have rather unhappy or tragic endings… Nancy Carroll, Clara Bow, Veronica Lake, Frances Farmer, Helen Walker, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn died young too.

Add Gail Russell to the tragic Paramount group as well as Jean Heather whose career seems to have been cut short by a car accident.

I liked Linda in A Letter to Three Wives

That joke isn't at all tired, Klan Granny at R39.

R43 She's really just a cameo in The Song of Bernadette (she wasn't even credited) and she was very resentful at all the virginal, young maiden roles she was typecast in back then. Summer Storm was what broke that mold and allowed her to play a voluptuous vixen, a role she fought hard for. She got Hangover Square based on the strength of her performance in Summer Storm. Forever Amber was derided by critics but I thought she was exceptional in it especially with the amber hair and all the glorious technicolor gowns.

My Darling Clementine was another movie she didn't care for, since her part really wasn't that great even if the film is viewed as a classic now. Reading her Wiki page, there are quotes from different points of her career, and it's pretty tragic how hopeful she was that she'd make it as a big star and even after career fallbacks, she was still optimistic that things would get better and something great would be waiting just around the corner. I heard that even when she was taken away to the hospital after the fire, she didn't realize the extent of her injuries and was convinced she wasn't badly hurt and was going to live.

Linda's dark looks are what inspired Fox to change her name to Linda, since it sounded Hispanic. Ironically enough, her real name of Monetta would probably be considered more exotic now. I don't think she had mixed blood though and if I'm correct, she had a French background.

Didn’t Maureen O’Hara claim all the prestige roles at Fox went to Darnell and Gene Tierney. I guess Maureen would beg to differ with Linda that her films were trash.

Maureen O'Hara had an axe to grind with both Gene and Laura. Maureen wanted the lead role in The Razor's Edge and Zanuck promised her she would get the role but she couldn't tell anybody about it since Somerset Maugham had written the role in the original book for Gene Tierney. Maureen told Linda since they were friends, and the next thing she knew she was fired and replaced with Gene.

I haven't read her autobiography but apparently Maureen claimed that Walt Disney hated her too and that after The Parent Trap, she had been promised the lead role in Mary Poppins but he refused to cast her again.

One prestige Fox film that Linda probably should have gotten was Pinky. Jeanne Crain did not seem to be black in any shape or form.

Judy Garland.