Baxter was born May 7, 1923, inMichigan City, Indiana, to Catherine Dorothy Baxter (née Wright; 1894–1979), whose father was the architect and designerFrank Lloyd Wright, and Kenneth Stuart Baxter (1893–1977), an executive with theSeagram Company.
When Baxter was five, she appeared in a school play. When she was six, her family moved to New York, where she continued to act. She was raised in Westchester County, New York[2] and attendedThe Brearley School.[3]
At age 10, Baxter attended a Broadway play starringHelen Hayes where she was so impressed she declared to her family she wanted to become an actress. By age 13, she had appeared on Broadway inSeen but Not Heard. During this period, Baxter learned her acting craft as a student of actress and teacherMaria Ouspenskaya.
In 1939, she was cast asKatharine Hepburn's younger sister in the playThe Philadelphia Story, Hepburn did not like Baxter's acting style so Baxter was replaced during the show's pre-Broadway run. Rather than giving up, she turned to Hollywood.[4]
Baxter co-starred with Tyrone Power andGene Tierney in 1946'sThe Razor's Edge, for which she won both theAcademy Award and theGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Baxter later recounted thatThe Razor's Edge contained her only great performance, a hospital scene where the character Sophie "loses her husband, child and everything else." She said she relived the death of her brother, who had died at age three.[10]
In 1950, Baxter was chosen to co-star inAll About Eve largely because of a resemblance toClaudette Colbert, who originally was cast but dropped out and was replaced byBette Davis.[11] The original idea was to have Baxter's character gradually come to mirror Colbert's over the course of the film.[11] Baxter received an Academy Award nomination forBest Actress for the title role of Eve Harrington. She said she modeled the role on a bitchy understudy she had for her debut performance in the Broadway playSeen but Not Heard at the age of 13 and who had threatened to "finish her off."[10]
Baxter won the part of the Egyptian princess and queenNefertari (spelled Nefretiri in the film) inCecil B. DeMille's award-winning biblical epicThe Ten Commandments (1956).[16] Her co-stars includedCharlton Heston as Moses andYul Brynner as Rameses. Her scenes were shot on Paramount's sound stages in 1955, and she attended the film's New York and Los Angeles premieres in November 1956. Despite criticisms of her interpretation of Nefertari, DeMille andThe Hollywood Reporter both thought her performance was "very good",[17][18] andThe New York Daily News described her as "remarkably effective".[19] For her work inThe Ten Commandments, she won aLaurel Award for Topliner Female Dramatic Performance.[15] She later remembered the film in an interview:
DeMille asked me to come in. His office at Paramount was bursting with books, props, rolls of linens. I told him I'd have to wear an Egyptian false nose and he pounded the table. "No. Baxter, your Irish nose stays in this picture." He acted out my part and I kept nodding, and I walked out with the part. The sound stage sets were magnificent. It was all corny, sure, but DeMille knew it was corny—that's what he wanted, what he loved. I loved slinking around—really, this was silent film acting but with dialogue.[14]
Baxter worked regularly in television in the 1960s. She appeared as one of the mystery guests onWhat's My Line? She also starred as guest villainZelda The Great inepisodes 9 and 10 of theBatman series. She appeared as another villain, Olga, Queen of the Cossacks, oppositeVincent Price'sEgghead in three episodes of the show's third season. She played an old flame ofRaymond Burr on his crime seriesIronside. Baxter made a guest appearance onMy Three Sons season 8 episode 10, aired on November 4, 1967, called "Designing Woman", portraying a glamorous female engineer who wanted Steve Douglas (Fred MacMurray) as a love interest and possible future husband.[citation needed]
Baxter returned to Broadway during the 1970s inApplause, the musical version ofAll About Eve, but this time as Margo Channing (succeedingLauren Bacall).[22]
In the 1970s, Baxter was a frequent guest and guest host onThe Mike Douglas Show. She portrayed a murderous film star on an episode ofColumbo, titled "Requiem for a Falling Star". In 1971, she had a role inFools' Parade as an aging prostitute. In 1983, Baxter starred in the television seriesHotel, replacing herAll About Eve costarBette Davis after the latter became ill.[23]
Baxter with her first husband, actorJohn Hodiak, in 1950
Baxter married actorJohn Hodiak on July 7, 1946,[24] at her parents' home inBurlingame, California.[25] The couple had one daughter, Katrina, born in 1951. They divorced in 1953. At the time, she said they were "basically incompatible",[26] but in her book she blamed herself for the separation:
I had loved John as much. But we'd eventually congealed in the longest winter in the world. Daily estrangement. Things unsaid. Even a fight would have warmed us. To my shame, I'd picked one at last in order to unfreeze the word "divorce".[27]
In the mid-1950s, Baxter began a relationship with her publicist Russell Birdwell, who took control of her career and directed her inThe Come On (1956).[13] The couple formed Baxter-Birdwell Productions to make films on a 10-year plan; Baxter would star in the films and Birdwell would work behind the camera.[28]Princeton University Library has a collection of 175 letters by Baxter to Birdwell.[29]
In 1960, Baxter married a second time to Randolph Galt, an American owner of a cattle station atGloucester, New South Wales where she was filmingSummer of the Seventeenth Doll. After the birth of their second daughter, Maginel, back in California, Galt unexpectedly announced that they were moving to a 4,452 hectares (11,000 acres) ranch south ofGrants, New Mexico.[30] They then moved to Hawaii, his home state, before settling back in theBrentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.[31] Baxter and Galt were divorced in 1969. In 1976, Baxter recounted her courtship with Galt (who she called "Ran") in a well-received book calledIntermission. Melissa Galt, Baxter's first daughter with Galt, became an interior designer and then a business coach, speaker, and seminar provider.[32] Maginel became a cloistered Catholic nun, reportedly living in Rome.[33][34] After 11 years in Italy and 20 years living monastic life, Maginel left religion altogether.[35]
In 1977, Baxter married David Klee, a stockbroker. It was a brief marriage; Klee died unexpectedly from illness. The newlywed couple had purchased a sprawling property inEaston, Connecticut, which they extensively remodeled; however, Klee did not live to see the renovations completed. Although she maintained a residence inWest Hollywood, Baxter considered her Connecticut home to be her primary residence.
Baxter had a stroke on December 4, 1985, while hailing a taxi onMadison Avenue in New York City.[38] She remained on life support for eight days in New York'sLenox Hill Hospital, until family members agreed that brain function had ceased, and she died on December 12, at the age of 62.[39][2][40]
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