Ann Blyth, Oscar nominee for 'Mildred Pierce,' dies at 98

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred Ann Blyth, who was nominated for an Academy Award for playing the wicked, manipulative daughter in the 1945 noir melodrama “Mildred Pierce,” has died at age 98.Announced by her family, her death occurred in Rancho Santa Fe.

No further details were given.Just 17 years old when she shot the part in “Mildred Pierce,” the petite Blyth brought big-scale venom to the role of Veda, the resentful, murderous daughter of the hard-working title character played by Joan Crawford.Blyth’s facility with the mean-girl role caused many at the time to refer to her as “a young Bette Davis.”An adaptation of the 1941 novel by James M.

Cain, directed by Michael Curtiz, the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture, with Crawford winning for her lead performance.Asked about the role by The Times in 2013 and about the depth of her performance at such a young age, Blyth said simply, “I always had a terrific imagination and the ability to be somebody else.”Film noir historian Alan Rode said of Blyth in the film, “She just blew everybody away.It’s certainly Joan Crawford’s movie, but she is really the spine of the movie.

She is the epitome of the film noir daughter from hell.It’s just an amazing performance that stands the test of time.”Shortly after finishing “Mildred Pierce,” in April 1945, while shooting “Danger Signal,” Blythe broke her back when a toboggan on which she was riding overturned.

It took more than a year for her to recover and get back to work — she attended the Oscars ceremony in a dress designed to hide her back brace — returning to the screen in 1946’s “Swell Guy.”“It might have been so much worse,” she said of the accident in a 1946 interview.Anne Marie Blythe — she would drop the final letter of her first and last names for show bus...