#WomenDoingAwesomeThingsWednesday Teresa Wright's Bathing Suit Clause

5 years ago

Teresa Wright was a year into her two-year contract playing Mary Skinner in the stageplay "Life With Father" when Samuel Goldwyn came to the show. "Miss Wright was seated at her dressing table, and looked for all the world like a little girl experimenting with her mother's cosmetics. I had discovered in her from the first sight, you might say, an unaffected genuineness and appeal." (Teresa Wright | The Independent) But Wright "fiercely fought not to be a glamour girl. She loathed pictures in bathing suits and interviews with fan magazines, and told Goldwyn that much. He assured her he was not of "the bathing suit school of Hollywood producers" [...] and promised to promote her more ethereal talents." (Teresa Wright, Stage and Film Star, Dies at 86 - The New York Times)

The "bathing suit" clause went as follows:

"The aforementioned Teresa Wright shall not be required to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in the water. Neither may she be photographed running on the beach with her hair flying in the wind. Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: In shorts, playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal; attired in firecrackers and holding skyrockets for the Fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving; wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf; assuming an athletic stance while pretending to hit something with a bow and arrow."