She was loved by audiences for playing a daughter impossible to love — and that paradox sat at the heart of one of Hollywood's most quietly versatile careers.
A monster on screen, a star in life
In 1945, a teenage actress from Mount Kisco, New York, delivered one of the screen's most fully realized villains: Veda Pierce, the social-climbing, mother-tormenting daughter at the center of Mildred Pierce. Ann Blyth's performance was so commanding that the Academy nominated the 17-year-old for best supporting actress; Joan Crawford, as the mother Veda torments, won best actress. The two performances remain inseparable in film memory. The Los Angeles Times marked Blyth's death with the wry headline that called Veda "L.A.'s most odious monster" — a backhanded tribute to how vividly she brought the character to life.
What made the achievement striking was its contrast with everything else Blyth did. Where Veda was cold and mercenary, Blyth, by every professional account, was warm and generous — and, unlike the talentless Veda, possessed a genuine soprano that carried her through a second, sunnier career.
From radio to Hollywood
Born Anne Marie Blythe on August 16, 1927, she was performing on children's radio by age five and made her Broadway debut at 13 in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine. Universal signed her soon after, and she made her film debut in 1944 — with Mildred Pierce following a year later. Nothing in her screen career would be quite so dark again, which suited her well.
The musical years
Through the early 1950s, Blyth became one of MGM's most reliable musical leads, appearing opposite Mario Lanza in the hit The Great Caruso (1951), with Howard Keel in Rose Marie (1954), and in Kismet (1955). In 1957 she took the title role in The Helen Morgan Story, a reminder that she had never lost her appetite for dramatic material, even as the studio era tended to slot actresses into types.
A long life beyond the screen
In 1953 Blyth married Dr. James McNulty, an obstetrician and the brother of entertainer Dennis Day; they raised five children and remained married until his death in 2007. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and stepped away from acting in 1985 after decades of steady television and stage work, spending a long retirement in Southern California. No cause of death was announced. She is survived by her five children and ten grandchildren.
A legacy in shadow and song
It is a small irony of film history that Ann Blyth is best remembered for a character built to be loathed — and that she played her so well audiences never quite let Veda go. The woman herself, by all evidence, was something entirely different: a professional of quiet distinction who built a full life far from the spotlight she had lit so briefly and so brightly.
