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Fay Bainter

Fay Bainter
Bainter in 1950
Born	Fay Okell Bainter (1893-12-07)December 7, 1893 Los Angeles, California, U.S.[1]
Died	April 16, 1968(1968-04-16) (aged 74) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Arlington National Cemetery
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1907–1961
Known for	Jezebel White Banners State Fair The Children's Hour
Spouse	Reginald Venable ​ ​ (m. 1921; died 1964)​
Children	1

Fay Okell Bainter (December 7, 1893 – April 16, 1968) was an American film and stage actress.^[2] She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Jezebel (1938) and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bainter was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Charles F. Bainter and Mary Okell.^[3]

Bainter made her first appearance on stage in 1908 in The County Chairman at Morosco's Theater in Burbank, California. In 1910, she was a traveling stage actress. Her Broadway debut was in the role of Celine Marinter in The Rose of Panama (1912). P. G. Wodehouse, reviewing Turn to the RightinVanity Fair in 1916, wrote, "Miss Bainter's advent from nowhere and her instant success form the season's biggest sensation."^[4] She appeared in a number of successful plays in New York, such as East Is West, The Willow Tree, and Dodsworth. In 1926, she appeared with Walter Abel in a Broadway production of Channing Pollock's The Enemy. MGM persuaded her to try films and her movie debut was in This Side of Heaven (February 1934). Also in 1934, she appeared in Dodsworth on Broadway and in the film It Happened One Day. Bainter quickly achieved success in the movies, and in 1939, she became the first performer to receive two Oscar nominations in the same year, contending for both Best Actress for White Banners (1938) and Best Supporting Actress for Jezebel (1938), winning for the latter.^[5] In 1940, she played Mrs. Gibbs in the film production of the Thornton Wilder play Our Town. In 1945, she played Melissa Frake in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical State Fair. She was again nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Children's Hour (1961).^[6]

Bainter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.^[7]

Fay Bainter and Reginald Venable were married on June 8, 1921, in Riverside, California.^[8] Cmdr. Reginald Venable was a United States Navy officer who graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1913. He resigned from the Navy in 1925 as a lieutenant commander to manage his wife's business affairs. He had been a real-estate operator.^[9] The couple had one son, Reginald Venable Jr., who became an actor.^[10]

Bainter was the aunt of actress Dorothy Burgess.^[11]

Bainter and Venable are interred at Arlington National Cemetery.^[12]

• List of actors with Academy Award nominations
• List of actors with Hollywood Walk of Fame motion picture stars

^ Kirby, Walter (March 16, 1952). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. The Decatur Daily Review. p. 44. Retrieved May 23, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.

• Alistair, Rupert (2018). "Fay Bainter". The Name Below the Title : 65 Classic Movie Character Actors from Hollywood's Golden Age (softcover) (First ed.). Great Britain: Independently published. pp. 22–25. ISBN 978-1-7200-3837-5.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fay Bainter.

• Fay BainteratIMDb
• Fay Bainter at the Internet Broadway Database
• Fay BainteratAllMovie
• Fay Bainter and son Reggie Jr.
• Fay Bainter at Virtual History