September 3rd | 5 Movies
In the 1950s, there was a crowded field of charming and talented young actresses swirling around Hollywood. Barbara Rush could go toe-to-toe with any of them. In a career that spanned more than five decades, Rush moved easily between film, stage and television and knew how to give a memorable performance even if the material wasn’t always up to her talents. Rush passed away on March 31, 2024, at the age of 97, and this September we’re honoring her legacy with five movies that showcase why she was such a valuable screen presence.
Born in Denver on January 4, 1927, Rush grew up in Santa Barbara, California. Starting on stage at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Rush was signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures in 1950. It didn’t take long before she left her stamp on the decade by bringing depth to simple “love interest” parts. Perhaps the greatest example of this is in the 1956 Nicholas Ray drama Bigger Than Life. James Mason stars as Ed Avery, a normal man dealing with chronic pain who takes an experimental treatment to cure his condition. At first it seems to be working well, but then his mental state starts to unravel. Rush plays Ed’s devoted wife, Lou, who tries to help him through his physical and then mental pain.
Mason has the juicier role here as he gets to play all the highs and lows of a man plagued by psychosis, and it’s certainly one of the acclaimed actor’s most memorable performances. However, the film doesn’t work without Lou as its human center. Lou functions as the audience surrogate, witnessing what’s happening to Ed but unable to stop the whirlwind of terror he’s inflicting on his loved ones. Rush pushes beyond stunned horror at her husband’s condition to find the emotional truths of dealing with a loved one who now seems unrecognizable due to factors beyond his control. A lesser actor would simply get overshadowed and blown away by Mason’s work, but Rush maintains the film’s emotional anchor.
Rush turned in a similarly reliable performance the same year in Jesse Hibbs’ boxing noir, World in My Corner. Audie Murphy plays Tommy Shea, a boxer who wants to win honestly in a crooked sport, especially with fight promoter Harry Cram (Howard St. John) tempting him with big money. Tommy comes from extreme poverty, and he feels like boxing is the only way he can pull himself out of his financial circumstances. However, he’s forced to reconsider his worldview when he starts falling for Rush’s Dorothy, the daughter of the millionaire Robert Mallinson (Jeff Morrow), who agrees to sponsor Tommy.
Although it wears the guise of a typical boxing picture (will our hero take a shortcut to riches or fight honorably?), World in My Corner is a somewhat sneaky critique of economic forces by putting Dorothy on equal footing with Tommy in how money has shaped their lives. For Tommy, never having money keeps him motivated to fight his way out of the slums, but for Dorothy, she finds her life curtailed by her father’s gilded cage. However, rather than just play poor-little-rich-girl, Rush provides pathos to the character, making us see that Dorothy is, in some ways, just as trapped as Tommy. While she may never want for material possessions, her father belittles her personal aspirations. In both circumstances, we see how those with economic power, whether it’s Cram or Mallinson, can use their wealth to beat others into a more self-serving shape. This gives World in My Corner an added punch, where the stakes go beyond Tommy’s goal of winning in the ring, similar to films noir Body and Soul (1947) and The Set-Up (1949).
By 1956, Rush was an established star thanks in large part to the success of her 1953 breakout role in It Came from Outer Space, which won her the Golden Globe for Most Promising Female Newcomer. Based on the Ray Bradbury treatment “The Meteor,” the story follows amateur astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) and schoolteacher Ellen Fields (Rush), who notice a meteorite crash near their small town. When they go to check it out, John discovers that it’s an alien spacecraft. When the spacecraft is able to disguise itself as a meteorite, John has trouble convincing anyone, including Ellen, that it’s actually an alien vessel. As a sci-fi film, Jack Arnold’s It Came from Outer Space sits curiously between two other classic science-fiction films of the Cold War era: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Rush gets the plum role of playing an array of emotions and she takes full advantage of the part here.
Although there are no sci-fi trappings, Rush gets the benefit of a similar performance in Vincent Sherman’s 1959 melodrama The Young Philadelphians. A story of the upper class spanning multiple generations, Paul Newman takes center stage as aspiring law student Anthony “Tony” Lawrence, who finds himself caught up in the social intrigues of wealthy Philadelphians. He falls for Joan Dickinson (Rush), and the two wish to run away and get married. However, after talking with her father, the wealthy and successful lawyer Gilbert Dickinson (John Williams), Tony takes a deal where he would delay the marriage in exchange for help with his career and a place at Gilbert’s law firm. Joan sees this as a betrayal that changes their course of both of their lives.
When Tony and Joan cross paths again later in life, she’s a changed woman. Her decisions have hardened her, made her cooler, and forces Tony to realize there’s no going back to the flush of first love they once felt for each other. Their initial connection has been irreparably broken, and if they’re ever to reconcile, they will do so as different people. For Newman, the audience gets the benefit of watching that transformation in every scene since the story never leaves him. Rush, on the other hand, manages a similar task to what she did in It Came from Outer Space, where there’s a total transformation. But The Young Philadelphians is a bit more difficult since she has to show shades of the old Joan who fell for Tony. Unsurprisingly, she manages it wonderfully, portraying Joan not as bitter, but as someone who had her heart broken and now needs to wear emotional armor. Rush retains our sympathies because Joan isn’t trying to get back at Tony; she wants to avoid being hurt by him again, and part of the film’s emotional stakes hang on whether or not she can give him another chance.
The cool side of Rush gets to shine in the final film of the memorial tribute, the 1964 musical comedy Robin and the 7 Hoods. The film is a spin on the Robin Hood legend set in 1920s Chicago, where gangster Guy Gisborne (Peter Falk) has consolidated the crime families following the assassination of the previous boss, “Big Jim” Stevens (a fun little cameo I won’t spoil here in case you haven’t seen the movie). Guy wants to make sure all the other gangsters pay him their protection money, but that doesn’t sit well with Big Jim’s friend, Robbo (Frank Sinatra), and his crew. Robbo is so independent that he won’t even team up with Big Jim’s refined daughter Marian (Rush), who wants to avenge her father’s death and take over the town.
While Robin and the 7 Hoods has fun playing into Robin Hood tropes and characters, a neat twist is not putting Robbo and Marian at the center as a love story. If anything, Marian gets to be her own power player, Rush still shines in a role that may not let her dominate the movie (this is a Rat Pack picture, after all), but also never relegates her to someone so charmed by Robbo that she gives up her own goals and desires. The role allows Rush to lean into a more villainous side than her previous roles.
These five films are only a glimpse of Rush’s diverse and exciting career. Even when she left the big screen following roles in Can’t Stop the Music (1980) and Summer Lovers (1982), she never ceased to be a major presence in entertainment, working steadily in television and on stage from the 1970s through the 2000s. Hopefully this night’s lineup of her films will bring her well-deserved notice to new fans and curious movie lovers.
