There was a time in the 1950s and 60s when film buffs would have known what was meant by a "Martha Hyer role". It evoked a classy, beautiful but cold woman, usually the one the hero aspires to, but realises, by the end, would not be good for him. This was typified by Hyer's portrayal of the frosty schoolteacher in Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running (1958), for whom a would-be writer (Frank Sinatra) hopelessly falls. "Your hands on me aren't the least persuasive," she tells him, unpersuasively. Later, in the film's most subtle sequence, she is seduced, sobbing in silhouette while Sinatra picks the pins out of her hair. Hyer, who has died aged 89, deservedly earned a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her performance.
Hyer was born in Fort Worth, Texas, one of three daughters of Agnes (nee Barnhart) and Julien Hyer. Her father was a judge who later took part in the trials at Nuremberg after the second world war. She studied speech and drama at Northwestern University in Illinois, before going to the Pasadena Playhouse in California. After being rejected by both Paramount and 20th Century Fox, she was finally given a contract with RKO in 1946.
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