Trivia of Margaret Sullavan

 Trivia of Margaret Sullavan (16 May 1909 - 1 January 1960)

*Sullavan was a frail child, and suffered from a painful muscular weakness in her legs that affected her ability to walk. This had devastating consequences. She wasn't well enough to socialize with any children her age until she was six years old, leading to an immensely lonely existence for her.

*At age 22, she married actor Henry Fonda on December 25, 1931, while both were performing with the University Players in their 18-week winter season at the Congress Hotel ballroom in Baltimore, Maryland.Sullavan and Fonda separated after two months married and divorced in 1933, but remained longtime friends. Jane Fonda remembers a "vivid image" of Margaret Sullavan. "What impressed me the most was how athletic and tomboyish she was. Dad had taught her how to walk on her hands during their courtship, and she could still suddenly turn herself upside down—and there she'd be, walking along on her hands."

*In Next Time We Love (1936), Sullavan played opposite the then-unknown James Stewart. She had been campaigning for Stewart to be her leading man.The script contained a role that she thought might be ideal for Stewart, who was the best friend of Sullavan's first husband, actor Henry Fonda. Years earlier, during a casual conversation with some fellow actors on Broadway, Sullavan predicted that Stewart would become a major Hollywood star.The inexperienced Stewart had been nervous and unsure of himself during the early stages of production, and director Edward H. Griffith, began bullying him.However, Sullavan believed in Stewart and spent evenings coaching him and helping him scale down his awkward mannerisms and hesitant speech that were soon to be famous. "It was Margaret Sullavan who made James Stewart a star," Griffith said.Sullavan and Stewart appeared in four films together : Next Time We Love (1936), The Shopworn Angel (1938), The Shop Around the Corner (1940) , and The Mortal Storm (1940).

*She was nominated as Best Actress in a Leading Role in Academy Award for film Three Comrades (1938) opposite Robert Taylor.Prior to production, Sullavan declared that script writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's dialogue was impossible to recite. As a result, producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz and screenwriter Edward E. Paramore Jr. rewrote most of the screenplay's dialogue.

*Sullavan had a reputation for being both temperamental and straightforward. On one occasion, Henry Fonda had decided to take up a collection for a 4th of July fireworks display. After Sullavan refused to make a contribution, Fonda complained loudly to a fellow actor. Sullavan rose from her seat and doused Fonda from head to foot with a pitcher of ice water. Fonda made a stately exit, and Sullavan, composed and unconcerned, returned to her table and ate heartily.Another of her blow-ups may have killed Sam Wood, who was a keen anti-Communist. He died from a heart attack shortly after a raging argument with Sullavan, who had refused to allow the firing of a writer on No Sad Songs for Me on account of his left-wing views. M-G-M studio chief Louis B. Mayer always seemed wary and nervous in her presence.

*Peter Fonda had a crush on Sullavan's daughter Bridget since they were child. In adulthood, after Bridget committed suicide, he named his own daughter (Bridget Fonda) after her.

*On January 1, 1960, at about 5:30 p.m., Sullavan was found in bed, barely alive and unconscious, in a hotel room in New Haven, Connecticut. Her copy of the script to Sweet Love Remembered, in which she was then starring during its tryout in New Haven, was found open beside her, as well as a bottle of prescribed pills. Sullavan was rushed to Grace New Haven Hospital, but shortly after 6:00 p.m. she was pronounced dead on arrival.She was 50 years old.