#WomenDoingAwesomeThingsWednesday: Teresa Wright vs. Samuel Goldwyn

Teresa Wright had been playing Mary Skinner in "Life With Father" on stage for a year when Lillian Hellman wired Samuel Goldwyn to come see her act. "I knew she was a great actress before the end of the first act," he told Time Magazine, "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." She was offered to play the role of Alexandra in Hellman's stage adaptation of "The Little Foxes" (1941) but only for a one picture deal which Wright happily accepted "equally pleased that her time in Hollywood would be limited ... and that soon she would be back among her friends on stage at the Empire Theatre." (Spoto, Donald. A Girl's Got to Breathe: The Life of Teresa Wright. 2016.) "The Little Foxes" would prove a success, but only through Goldwyn's terms with his RKO distributor which recorded a loss of $140,000. Bosley Crowther at The New York Times called Wright "fragile and pathetic as the harassed daughter of Regina."

During the shooting of "The Little Foxes," "Goldwyn subjected Teresa to the usual studio buildup and the rigors of the publicity machine. At an early session, a photographer told her to run her hands through her hair, to look up at a key light, to lick and part her lips alluringly, to recline in a nearly diaphanous silk gown on a chaise--and to look bored ... or seductive ... or disenchanted. Then an attending "hack," a publicist, fired questions he might use to entice magazines. "What do you want most of all in Hollywood?" "Above everything, I want to be a good actress." This was not the sort of scintillating reply the man wanted. "Tell us something original about your work at the studio." "If you want to something entirely original, just say that I hate the hours. I don't see how anyone has time to go to Ciro's as they all claim." Hollywood couldn't pin or talk up Wright, but Goldwyn had faith in her talent.

But eventually, Goldwyn had great plans to publicize and glamorize her which proved it didn't work during her breaks during shooting. He even wanted to place her photos nationwide and show the country she was attractive in addition to being a fresh new talent. Wright had heard about this through the grapevine, she immediately instructed her agent Abe Lastfogel to add a codicil to her renewed five-year contract.

She asserted that she "shall not be required to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in 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 the 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. And I will not assume an athletic stance while pretending to hit something or other with a bow and arrow." Goldwyn ended up reluctantly adding her terms to the deal. Wright said years later, "I hoped that my acting was better than my figure and I knew that another actress would do bathing-suit photos better."

In December 1948, Teresa Wright had a public falling out with Samuel Goldwyn and her contract with Goldwyn Studios was terminated. Goldwyn reasoned this in releasing his own personal statement that "I think the time has arrived when the studios must assert their rights more than they have in the past. No one has a greater appreciation of artists and no one wants to treat them more fairly than I have in my career. But I am sick and tired of what is going on in this town -- where people have no respect for the money they receive and refuse to perform and cooperate.

Making a picture is no longer sufficient. The picture has to be sold to the public, and particularly at this time, when it seems that everything is being done to unsell the public on Hollywood.

My reason for canceling the contract with Miss Wright is that she has been uncooperative and has refused to follow reasonable instructions. As far as I am concerned, that is that -- and irrespective of what anyone else does, I am through tolerating that sort of conduct. Instead of showing the gratitude, Miss Wright has done just the opposite. Hollywood had better get wise to itself. The day is over when stars can get away with this sort of behavior." (Teresa Wright vs. Samuel Goldwyn: Nasty Public 'Divorce')

Wright retaliated:

"A discussion of my difference with Mr. Goldwyn would be of benefit to no one and of interest to few. However, for the record, I would like to say that I never refused to perform the services required of me; I was unable to perform them because of ill health.

I accept Mr. Goldwyn's termination of my contract [reportedly at $5,000 a week] without protest -- in fact, with relief. The types of contracts standardized in the motion picture industry between players and producers are archaic in form and absurd in concept. I am determined never to set my name to another one.

We in the acting branch of the profession are to blame for accepting in our eagerness to work agreements under which we waive the natural equities prevailing in every other industry. We say in effect, "We have no privacy which you as producers cannot invade. Treat us like cattle. Speak to us like children. Make us work eleven hours a day. Loan us out for ten or twenty times the sums paid to us at your discretion. Only give us a big pay check at the end of the week."

If the time has come for anything new in the motion picture business, it has come for actors and actresses to stop being tax collectors, to say "pay me less, only treat me with respect."

"I have worked for Mr. Goldwyn seven years because I consider him a great producer, and he has paid me well, but in the future I shall gladly work for less if by doing so I can retain my hold upon the common decencies without which the most glorified job becomes intolerable, and with which the most humble can be carried off with dignity. I think the time has come for professional people to reject contracts like the one of which Mr. Goldwyn has so kindly relieved me."