Character actress from the stage who specialized in portraying morally upright mothers. Plain, if slightly severe-looking, Revere hit her stride during the 1940s when she won an Oscar as Elizabeth Taylor's wise mother in "National Velvet" (1944), she was also nominated for Academy Awards as the mother of Jennifer Jones in "The Song of Bernadette" (1943), and Gregory Peck in "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947).
Perhaps her most representative role was as John Garfield's mother and conscience in Robert Rossen's moral indictment of the American dream, "Body and Soul" (1947). Among several who worked on the film, Revere was blacklisted by the industry for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951. After playing Montgomery Clift's Salvation Army mother in "A Place in the Sun" (1951), a role that reputedly was substantially cut as a result of her blacklisting, Revere's film career virtually ended. She returned to the stage, winning a Tony Award in 1960 for her performance in Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Attic" and began acting on TV in 1962. After an absence of 19 years, she returned to the big screen in "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon" (1970).
Family
FATHER: Clinton Revere. Stockbroker.
Companion
HUSBAND: Samuel Rosen. Stage director. Married April 11, 1935 until his death in 1984.
Milestone
Performed in stock and regional theaters
1934: Broadway debut, "The Children's Hour"
1934: Film debut, "Double Door"
1951: Refused to testify before HUAC
1950: Last film before being blacklisted, "A Place in the Sun"
1962: First appeared on TV in "The Edge of Night"
1970: First film after being blacklisted, "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon"
Education
Wellesley College - Wellesley, Massachusetts
American Laboratory School - New York, New York - studied acting with Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boleslavsky
"Nobody went to jail because they were Communists. They went to jail for contempt. But the awful thing about the whole bloody era was that whether you answered or didn't, cooperated or not, you were dead in the business."--Anne Revere in 1975 interview.
Bernadette Marcum
Criminally abandoned
Here was a fine actress who portrayed noble, honest, hard working women and her career is cut short because she ...
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Brian C. Doyle
A Certain Magnetism
Every time I saw Anne Revere I have always felt a "Certain Magnetism".
Although her Career has been filled with small ...
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