Phyllis St. Felix Thaxter (November 20, 1919 – August 14, 2012) was an American actress. She is best known for portraying Ellen Lawson in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and Martha "Ma" Kent in Superman (1978). She also appeared in Bewitched (1945),
Blood on the Moon (1948), and The World of Henry Orient (1964).
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Early life
Thaxter was born in Portland, Maine, the youngest of three children of Phyllis (nee Schuyler) Thaxter, former actress, and future Maine Supreme Court justice Sidney St. Felix Thaxter; her siblings were brother Sidney W. Thaxter and sister Hildegarde Schuyler Thaxter (later the wife of federal judge Edward Thaxter Gignoux). Her grandfather, Major Sidney W. Thaxter, was awarded the Medal of Honor during the American Civil War.
Career
Before appearing in films, Thaxter was on the stage. When Dorothy McGuire went to Hollywood, Thaxter replaced her in the Broadway play Claudia. In 1944, she signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her movie debut was in the 1944 wartime film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. In the 1945 film-noir Bewitched, Thaxter played Joan Alris Ellis, a woman with split personality. In 1948, she played a cattle owner's daughter in Blood on the Moon.
On August 15, 1952, Thaxter, having recently completed work on Operation Secret and Springfield Rifle and awaiting the birth of her second child, was hospitalized with what was described as a "mild" and "non-paralytic" case of polio. Although the illness did not impact her pregnancy, it proved sufficiently serious to end Thaxter's film career, when the following month, columnist Hedda Hopper reported that the actress's contract with Warner Bros. had, "by mutual agreement", been "quietly washed up". Of the remaining, predominantly TV-focused four decades of Thaxter's career, the big-screen portion comprised four widely spaced credits.
Thaxter appeared in television series such as Rawhide, portraying Pauline Cushman in the episode "The Blue Spy" (1961); The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, portraying a paralyzed wife being terrorized by her husband in the episode "The Long Silence" (1963); Wagon Train ("The Christine Elliott Story" and "The Vivian Carter Story"); The Twilight Zone ("Young Man's Fancy"); and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
She returned to Broadway, appearing in Take Her, She's Mine at the Biltmore in 1961.
In 1978, Thaxter was cast with Glenn Ford as Jonathan and Martha Kent in the blockbuster film Superman. In 1992, she appeared in the season-nine "Family Secrets" episode of Murder, She Wrote.
In 2003, Thaxter had a seconds-long appearance in the Midsomer Murders episode "The Fisher King" (season seven, episode three).
Personal life
Patricia Bosworth, in her biography of Montgomery Clift, tells of Thaxter's close relationship with Clift in the early 1940s, writing that they "seemed so close that a great many people assumed they would eventually marry".
While at MGM, Phyllis Thaxter married James T. Aubrey Jr., who later became president of CBS-TV and MGM. They had two children. The couple divorced in 1962.
In 1962, Thaxter married Gilbert Lea. They were married for 46 years until his death on May 4, 2008. Her family and she were Episcopalians, and her maternal grandfather was a minister. During her time of residency in California, she was a member of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, where she additionally held the wedding of her first marriage in November 1944.
She was a staunch Republican who dedicated a significant amount of her personal time and financial resources toward various conservative political causes during her career. Throughout her life, she remained a highly visible supporter of the party, attending multiple Republican National Conventions, galas, and key fund-raisers. She stepped into the political arena to actively campaign for major figures on the presidential stage, including Wendell Willkie, Thomas E. Dewey, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. Her activism was especially pronounced during her years as a California resident, during which she integrated her ideological beliefs directly into the local community by operating as an engaged member of the Hollywood Republican Committee, lending her voice to the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, and regularly organizing with the Bel-Air Republican Women's Group.
Death
Thaxter died on August 14, 2012, aged 92, in Longwood, Florida after an eight-year period with Alzheimer's disease.
She was cremated, and her ashes were scattered in Maine.
