R.I.P. Oscar-Nominated Actress Joan Lorring

Joan Lorring, who was Oscar nominated for best supporting actress in the 1945 film The Corn Is Green, died Friday in the New York City suburb of Sleepy Hollow.  She was 88.  Born Mary Magdalene Ellis in Hong Kong on April 17, 1926, Lorring fled with her mother from the Japanese invasion in 1939 to San Francisco.  Her showbiz career began in radio, and her first American film at 18 was the 1944 MGM romantic war drama Song of Russia. She signed with Warner Bros. for the role of the scheming, trampish Bessie Watty, playing opposite Bette Davis, in The Corn Is Green.  Though she lost the Oscar to Anne Revere’s turn as Mrs. Brown in National Velvet, a budding film career followed for Lorring in such features as Three Strangers, The Verdict, and two Joseph Losey films, The Big Night and Stranger on the Prowl. She co-starred in the Burt Lancaster co-directed feature The Midnight Man in 1974. Following movies, Lorring had a vibrant career on TV including a role as Emma, the sister to ax murderess Lizze Borden on a 1956 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, as well as such made-for-TV features  as 1966′s The Star Wagon opposite Dustin Hoffman and Eileen Brennan.  For a season, she portrayed the part of Anna Pavel on the soap opera Ryan’s Hope and even appeared as a guest on The Love Boat. 

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