The image of Dorothy McGuire, who died on September 13th aged 83, remained almost the same throughout her 20 years as a film star. Her persona - on screen and off - was that of an attractive woman of integrity, intelligence and charm, and it imbued the series of loving sweethearts, faithful wives and doting mothers whom she played so sympathetically.
The producer Darryl F. Zanuck called her an "angel", which, according to Elia Kazan, robbed her of her sexuality. She certainly had little chance to exude either sexuality or be malicious, like Bette Davis or Joan Crawford, but there was always room for an actress who was so good at being good.
Dorothy McGuire's first screen appearance was in the title role of Claudia (1943), which she had played to acclaim two years earlier on Broadway, receiving the New York critics' circle award. She was chosen for the role - that of a child shocked into adulthood - from 200 applicants by the Broadway producer John Golden because "she had a fresh, wind-blown quality and an impressive, though subdued, personality".
Born to well-off parents in Omaha, Nebraska, at school Dorothy McGuire wrote plays, directed and acted in them, and joined the Omaha Community Playhouse, where, at the age of 12, she took the lead in J.M. Barrie's A Kiss For Cinderella - opposite the 25-year-old Henry Fonda. Her lawyer-father wired her on opening night: "Let your head touch the stars, but keep your feet on the ground." This caveat characterised her way of life.
In 1937, she left college to concentrate on acting. After doing the rounds in New York, she got a part in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, proving lovely and vibrant with emotion as a young girl who dies prematurely after her marriage. She then went into a popular radio soap opera, Big Sister, and toured in plays before landing the role of Claudia, which led to David O. Selznick offering her a seven-year film contract. During the Broadway run of Claudia, Dorothy McGuire married the photographer John Swope.
She played the poverty-stricken wife of a drunken waiter in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1944), Kazan's first picture. This was followed by The Enchanted Cottage (1945), in which she was touching as a lonely, plain woman married to an embittered, disfigured first World War veteran (Robert Young). Better still was Robert Siodmak's chiller, The Spiral Staircase (1945), in which she played a mute servant girl living in fear of being murdered by a maniac.
Kazan's Gentleman's Agreement (1947) saw her nominated for an Oscar for her role as a socialite divorcΘe who believes she is free from anti-semitism until her journalist fiancΘ (Gregory Peck) has to pose as a Jew for a series of articles.
Around the same time, with Peck, Jennifer Jones, Mel Ferrer and Joseph Cotten, Dorothy McGuire formed the La Jolla Playhouse Group, for which she appeared in The Importance Of Being Earnest, I Am A Camera and The Winslow Boy. Her best film of the decade was William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion (1956), in which she played a warm-hearted Quaker wife trying to prevent husband Gary Cooper and son Anthony Perkins from fighting the American civil war.
She had now found a niche playing ideal mothers: the mother of eight in The Remarkable Mr Pennypacker (1959); the shipwrecked mother in The Swiss Family Robinson (1960); the mother in a loveless marriage in The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs (1960); and the protective mothers of Troy Donahue, in A Summer Place (1960). This run of mothers culminated in the role of the Virgin Mary in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).She is survived by her daughter and son.
Dorothy McGuire: born 1918; died, September 2001