Phyllis Thaxter

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Movie actress Phyllis Thaxter (born Phyllis St. Felix Thaxter November 20, 1921 in Portland, Maine) was the daughter of Maine Supreme Court Justice Sidney Thaxter and her mother a one-time Shakespearean actress. Thaxter, taking after her mother, worked as a Broadway actress in the 1930s and eventually signed an MGM contract in 1944. Her movie debut had her playing opposite actor Van Johnson in the war-time docudrama Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. While at MGM, Phyllis married James T. Aubrey, Jr., who later became president of CBS-TV and MGM. They divorced in 1962. While at MGM, she usually played the ever-patient wife to a number of leading men, including Robert Ryan in Act of Violence (1948). One of her more memorable roles was also in 1948, playing a cattle owners daughter alongside Barbara Bel Geddes in Blood on the Moon (1948). She changed studios, moving to Warner Brothers, in the 1950s but usually played the same type of roles.

Thaxter career stalled after an attack of infantile paralysis, while visiting her family in Portland, in 1952. She, however, made a slow comeback in character parts in television, movies and the stage. In 1978, Phyllis Thaxter was cast along with Glenn Ford as Ma and Pa Kent in Superman: The Movie.