Miriam Hopkins

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Miriam Hopkins was a product of the South. In true Southern fashion, her family proved a challenge to her throughout her life. She began her career in vaudeville and moved on to Broadway and Hollywood, with stints in radio and television. Examples of her screen work include a dance hall prostitute in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the scandalous The Story of Temple Drake, and The Old Maid, one of two films she made with Bette Davis, who always brought out the worst in Hopkins. In 1935, she was Becky Sharp, in the first all-Technicolor feature film (and her only Academy Award nomination). Hopkins had a legendary reputation for being difficult. Whatever drove her—ambition, insecurity, or something altogether different—we cannot say, but she often conflicted with her costars. And no matter where she worked, she fearlessly tackled the powers-that-be, from the venerated Samuel Goldwyn to the irascible Jack Warner. But there’s more to Miriam Hopkins. She shouldn’t be remembered for her temperament alone but for her catalog of work as an exceptional actress. Hopkins, who died shortly before her seventieth birthday in October 1972, remains a thoroughly underappreciated performer, one whose rich, and quite prolific, career merits a reexamination.