The Pride of the Yankees (TPOTY) is one of the greatest baseball movies ever made. Its enduring strength comes from the film's focus on Lou Gehrig's character and personal values, including decency, integrity and having a strong internal moral compass. He became a public figure without a whiff of scandal, and achieved star status because of his God-given gifts rather than celebrity behavior.
The casting of this film is significant. To play the left-handed Gehrig from his youthful days as a Columbia University undergraduate student to the time of his terminal illness when still a relatively young man, Samuel Goldwyn chose the right-handed middle aged (then 41) Gary Cooper. Cooper was an actor without significant apparent athletic skills, yet he made it easy to suspend disbelief with his nuanced portrayal of Gehrig---particularly evident when playing him as a young college student. Interestingly, Cooper was cast as another baseball player (a pitcher with a blown-out arm) just one year earlier in Frank Capra's Meet John Doe.
In the important part of Eleanor Twitchell---who became Gehrig's wife and soul-mate---Goldwyn chose Teresa Wright. She was 17 years younger than Cooper--and considerably younger and more attractive than the real-life Eleanor Twitchell Gehrig. Wright was in the middle of the most accomplished period of her film career--having just completed Mrs. Miniver and soon to be working on Shadow of a Doubr. She had the unique experience of being nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for TPOTY the same year (1942) that she was also nominated and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Mrs. Miniver!
In his excellent biography of Wright--A Girl's Got to Breathe (2016), Donald Spoto explained how the book got its curious title. It referred to a spontaneous remark made by Wright during a romantic sequence in TPOTY---when Cooper and Wright were locked in an embrace that apparently developed a life of its own! Off screen,Wright found Cooper pleasant and professional---someone who tended to keep to himself and often whittled wood as a distraction. The romantic scenes with six foot three inches Cooper and five foot two inches Wright presented a logistical challenge, but it was not apparent in the final film. As for their personal relationship during production, Wright said that ".... We got along very well on the set, although there was almost no chitchat...but I never really knew him." The camera tells us a very different story!
Eleanor Gehrig had previously suggested either Jean Arthur or Barbara Stanwyck as actresses who she felt could best play her in TPOTY. In the end---she stated that nobody could have done it better or as well as Teresa Wright.
TPOTy had a stellar company of supporting players, including Cooper's frequent co-star Walter Brennan. Its reputation as a Golden Age of Hollywood classic only increases with the passage of time. Cooper's farewell speech as Gehrig at the end of the film is one of the most inspiring moments in the history of American cinema. And the magic that Cooper and Wright created in this film makes it truly one for the ages.
The casting of this film is significant. To play the left-handed Gehrig from his youthful days as a Columbia University undergraduate student to the time of his terminal illness when still a relatively young man, Samuel Goldwyn chose the right-handed middle aged (then 41) Gary Cooper. Cooper was an actor without significant apparent athletic skills, yet he made it easy to suspend disbelief with his nuanced portrayal of Gehrig---particularly evident when playing him as a young college student. Interestingly, Cooper was cast as another baseball player (a pitcher with a blown-out arm) just one year earlier in Frank Capra's Meet John Doe.
In the important part of Eleanor Twitchell---who became Gehrig's wife and soul-mate---Goldwyn chose Teresa Wright. She was 17 years younger than Cooper--and considerably younger and more attractive than the real-life Eleanor Twitchell Gehrig. Wright was in the middle of the most accomplished period of her film career--having just completed Mrs. Miniver and soon to be working on Shadow of a Doubr. She had the unique experience of being nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for TPOTY the same year (1942) that she was also nominated and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Mrs. Miniver!
In his excellent biography of Wright--A Girl's Got to Breathe (2016), Donald Spoto explained how the book got its curious title. It referred to a spontaneous remark made by Wright during a romantic sequence in TPOTY---when Cooper and Wright were locked in an embrace that apparently developed a life of its own! Off screen,Wright found Cooper pleasant and professional---someone who tended to keep to himself and often whittled wood as a distraction. The romantic scenes with six foot three inches Cooper and five foot two inches Wright presented a logistical challenge, but it was not apparent in the final film. As for their personal relationship during production, Wright said that ".... We got along very well on the set, although there was almost no chitchat...but I never really knew him." The camera tells us a very different story!
Eleanor Gehrig had previously suggested either Jean Arthur or Barbara Stanwyck as actresses who she felt could best play her in TPOTY. In the end---she stated that nobody could have done it better or as well as Teresa Wright.
TPOTy had a stellar company of supporting players, including Cooper's frequent co-star Walter Brennan. Its reputation as a Golden Age of Hollywood classic only increases with the passage of time. Cooper's farewell speech as Gehrig at the end of the film is one of the most inspiring moments in the history of American cinema. And the magic that Cooper and Wright created in this film makes it truly one for the ages.