Cathy O'Donnell

The Look Goldwyn Bought at a Drugstore

Samuel Goldwyn was looking for a face that didn't look like Hollywood. He found Ann Steely at a drugstore in Oklahoma City and decided that this sad-eyed girl would be his next big bet. He changed her name to Cathy O'Donnell and sent her to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Her debut could not have been more powerful. In 1946, she played Wilma Cameron in The Best Years of Our Lives. Her role was that of the faithful sweetheart waiting for the soldier who returns from the war without hands. The film won seven Oscars, and she became the face of postwar American innocence.

But the reality of the contract was suffocating. Goldwyn controlled every move of her private life, and it wasn't long before they clashed.

The industry was never kind to her.

Her romance with film noir and family betrayal

Nicholas Ray chose her for They Live by Night in 1948. It was an absolute success. She co-starred with Farley Granger in a story about fugitives that set the tone for more sensitive film noir. They shot the film in just thirty days under constant pressure from the studio.

That same year she married Robert Wyler. The problem was that Robert was the older brother of William Wyler, Goldwyn's star director. The producer flew into a rage because he considered the Wylers his commercial enemies. So he decided to punish Cathy by leaving her without work for months.

Her contract with Goldwyn ended up in court.

And although she regained her freedom, she never regained the same momentum. She worked on Brigade 21 in 1951 under the direction of her brother-in-law William. There she proved she could hold her own opposite Kirk Douglas in a much rawer and less romantic setting than her early days.

The years of drought and the Judean desert

By the mid-1950s, the phone was not ringing as often as before. She appeared in The Man from Laramie in 1955 alongside James Stewart. It was one of the few westerns where her fragile presence fit the stark violence of the plot. But movies were changing, and the major studios were looking for more explosive types of female roles.

Her last major appearance was in 1959. William Wyler cast her as Tirzah in Ben-Hur. She spent months at the Cinecittà studios in Rome filming the scenes in the leper colony cave. She appears in only a fraction of the total footage, but her reunion with Charlton Heston is one of the most memorable moments of the film.

After that, her career faded into minor television appearances and one-off episodes of western series. She quietly withdrew from public life while her health began to decline prematurely.

She died on April 11, 1970, from a brain hemorrhage caused by cancer. She was 46 years old.