Betsy Blair
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Betsy Blair (b. Elizabeth Winifred Boger on December 11, 1923 in Cliffside Park, New Jersey) is an Oscar-nominated American character actress.
She was originally a dancer who was first married to actor/dancer Gene Kelly. They were married for sixteen years and had one child together before divorcing. At the time she held some extreme political views and admittedly attempted to join the Communist Party. Her application was rejected as the Party felt she would be more valuable as the wife of the very liberal Kelly.
She and Kelly were married for sixteen years and had one child together before divorcing. He claimed to have had no knowledge of her political views and was insulated from political damage by his Irish Catholic extraction (which had also, by his own account, protected liberal actor Robert Ryan).
She starred in such films as A Double Life and The Snake Pit in the late 1940s. In the 1950s, she was under investigation from HUAC and almost lost one of her signature roles, that of Marty's girlfriend in Marty. For this performance, she received prizes from Cannes and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her career, nonetheless, was damaged during the McCarthy era, and she found work in New York.
