Clara Lou Sheridan was born in Denton, Texas, on February 21, 1915, the youngest of five children (Kitty, Pauline, Mabel, and George) of garage mechanic[1][2] George W. Sheridan and Lula Stewart (née Warren).[3][4] According to Sheridan, her father was a grandnephew of Civil War Union general Philip Sheridan.[5][6]
She was active in dramatics at Denton High School and at North Texas State Teachers College. She also sang with the college's stage band and played basketball on the North Texas women's basketball team.[7] Then, in 1933, Sheridan won the prize of a bit part in an upcoming Paramount film, Search for Beauty,[8] when her sister Kitty entered Sheridan's photograph into a beauty contest.[9]
Along with fellow contractees, Sheridan worked with Paramount's drama coach Nina Moise and performed on the studio lot in such plays as The Milky Way and The Pursuit of Happiness. While in The Milky Way, Paramount decided to change her first name from Clara Lou to the same as her character Ann.[11]
Sheridan was then cast in the film Behold My Wife! (1934) at the behest of director and friend Mitchell Leisen. The role provided two standout scenes for the actress, including one in which her character commits suicide, to which she attributed Paramount's keeping her under contract.[12]
Sheridan's notices in Letter of Introduction impressed Warner Bros. executives and she began to get roles in better quality pictures at her own studio starting with Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), wherein she played James Cagney's love interest; Bogart, O'Brien and the Dead End Kids had supporting roles. The film was a big hit and critically acclaimed.
In March 1939, Warner Bros. announced Sheridan had been voted by a committee of 25 men as the actress with the most "oomph" in America.[18] "Oomph" was described as "a certain indefinable something that commands male interest".[18]
She received as many as 250 marriage proposals from fans in a single week.[19] Sheridan reportedly loathed the sobriquet that made her a popular pin-up girl in the early 1940s.[20][21][22] However, she expressed in a February 25, 1940, news story distributed by the Associated Press that she no longer "bemoaned the "oomph" tag."[23] She continued, "But I'm sorry now. I know if it hadn't been for 'oomph' I'd probably still be in the chorus."[23]
She was the heroine of a novel, Ann Sheridan and the Sign of the Sphinx, written by Kathryn Heisenfelt and published by Whitman Publishing Company in 1943. While the heroine of the story was identified as a famous actress, the stories were entirely fictitious. The story was probably written for a young teenaged audience and is reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. It is part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", 16 books published between 1941 and 1947 that always featured a film actress as heroine.[25]
Sheridan was absent from screens for over a year, touring with the USO to perform in front of the troops as far afield as China.[27] She returned in One More Tomorrow (1946) with Morgan. She had an excellent role in the noir Nora Prentiss (1947), which was a hit. It was followed by The Unfaithful (1948), a remake of The Letter, and Silver River (1948), a Western melodrama with Errol Flynn.
Leo McCarey borrowed her to support Gary Cooper in Good Sam (1948). She was meant to star in Flamingo Road.[28] She then left Warner Bros., saying: "I wasn't at all satisfied with the scripts they offered me."[29]
In April 1949, she announced she wanted to produce Second Lady, a film based on a story by Eleanore Griffin.[29][30] She was going to make My Forbidden Past (originally titled Carriage Entrance) at RKO.[29] They fired her and Sheridan sued for $250,000 (equivalent to $3.2 million today)[31]The New York Times reported the amount as $350,000 ($4.5 million today).[32] Sheridan ultimately won $55,162 ($710,000 today).[33]
Universal
Sheridan made Woman on the Run (1950), a noir also starring Dennis O'Keefe which she produced. She wanted to make a film called Her Secret Diary.[34]
Woman on the Run was distributed by Universal, and Sheridan signed a contract with that studio. While there, she made Steel Town (1952), Just Across the Street (1952), and Take Me to Town (1953), a comedy with Sterling Hayden that was the first film directed by Douglas Sirk in the United States.
She performed in stage tours of Kind Sir (1958) and Odd Man In (1959), and The Time of Your Life at the Brussels World Fair in 1958. In all three shows, she acted with Scott McKay, whom she later married.[36][37]
In 1962, she played the lead in the Western series Wagon Train episode titled "The Mavis Grant Story".
Her final role was as Henrietta Hanks in the television comedy Western series Pistols 'n' Petticoats, which was filmed while she became increasingly ill in 1966, and was broadcast on CBS on Saturday nights.[38] The 19th episode of the series, "Beware the Hangman", aired as scheduled on the same day that she died in 1967.[39]
Sheridan married actor Edward Norris August 16, 1936, in Ensenada, Mexico.[41] They separated a year later and divorced in 1939. On January 5, 1942, she married fellow Warner Bros. star George Brent, who co-starred with her in Honeymoon for Three (1941); they divorced exactly one year later. Following her divorce from Brent, she had a long-term relationship with publicist Steve Hannagan that lasted until his death in 1953. Hannagan bequeathed Sheridan $218,399 (equivalent to $2.5 million today).[42]
Sheridan engaged in a romantic affair with Mexican actor Rodolfo Acosta, with whom she appeared in 1953's Appointment in Honduras. She and the married Acosta shared an apartment in Mexico City for several years, and Sheridan was charged with criminal adultery in Mexican federal court in October, 1956, following an accusation by Acosta's wife, Jeanine Cohen Acosta. Mexican authorities issued a warrant for Sheridan's arrest.[43][44] Nothing came of the criminal charges, and the relationship ended c. 1958.[citation needed]
On June 5, 1966, Sheridan married actor Scott McKay, who was with her when she died seven months later.[45][9]
In 1966, Sheridan began starring in a new television series, a Western-themed comedy called Pistols 'n' Petticoats. She became ill during the filming and died of esophageal cancer[47] with massive liver metastases at age 51 on January 21, 1967, in Los Angeles. She was cremated and her ashes were in the private vault at Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles until they were reinterned in a niche in the Chapel Columbarium at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 2005.[48]
^Wilkinson, L. A. (February 6, 1944). "Nothing But Oomph?". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest165486550.
^"Ann Sheridan Back From Tour". New York Times. September 7, 1944. p. 21.
^"Ann Sheridan Has Crowded Schedule". Los Angeles Times. July 6, 1947. p. C2.
^ abcScheuer, Philip K. (May 22, 1949). "Ann Sheridan to Risk Oomph on Own Movie: Ann Sheridan Carries on to Finish That Jinx Film". Los Angeles Times. p. D1.
