Popular 1940s actress Dorothy McGuire, who co-starred in films
opposite Gregory Peck and Gary Cooper, died Thursday night at St. John’s
Medical Center in Santa Monica of heart failure, the Los Angeles Times
reported. She was 85.
McGuire made her Broadway debut when Martha Scott left Thornton Wilder‘s
original production of Our Town in 1938. She was then brought to Hollywood in
1943 by producer David O. Selznick to star in the film version of the
Broadway play Claudia, for which she won a best acting award from New York drama critics.
McGuire starred in a number of major roles in Hollywood, including the mother in A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn, Peck’s fiancee in Gentleman’s Agreement, and Cooper’s
wife in Friendly Persuasion.
McGuire, who retired from acting in the early 1990s, is survived by two
children.
