Best Actress: Janet Gaynor

Someone's gotta be first, and the first actress to win an Oscar was Janet Gaynor!

gif by me

When I first started watching classic movies—and the Best Actress winners—in earnest over a decade ago, Janet Gaynor was one of the few women on the list that I’d never heard of. A quick cursory glance at her Wikipedia showed a silent ingenue who’d won for three films—a feat never to be repeated—and that by 1939, had walked away from Hollywood.

I can tell you honestly that I didn’t have as much of an appreciation for silent films back then; now I understand the nuance and the art that goes a silent performance, and how they differ from sound performances. From this, infer that I didn’t truly appreciate Janet Gaynor’s win. I think my reaction was likely along the lines of ‘Sure, but sound was imminent. They had to award someone.” But now, in my opinion, Janet was a deserving winner. Her performances in all three films were fantastic.

Janet was nominated for her work in Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), 7th Heaven (1927), and Street Angel (1928); her fellow nominees were Louise Dresser in A Ship Comes In and Gloria Swanson in Sadie Thompson.

Reflecting on her win in 1982, Janet told The New York Times that “…it was very exciting to me because I was so young, and there were actresses who had been stars for a much longer time—people like Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson. So it was a thrill to be chosen over all of them.”

“I was working on another picture when I received a telegram telling me I had won the first Academy Award,” Janet said. The winners were announced three months ahead of the awards ceremony at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on May 16, 1929. Janet remembered that there were tables set up around the ballroom, an orchestra, and dancing, but “Of course, I don’t remember everything because I was in sort of a daze.”

She didn’t remember if she gave a speech, but she recalled how nervous the idea would’ve made her, and assumed that she’d “blew kisses and waved.”

With all that being said, here are my thoughts on the movies that won Janet Gaynor the very first Academy Award for Best Actress. 

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

gif by me

Janet plays 'The Wife', a sweet, docile wife who is overcome with emotion when her cheating husband wants to spend the day with her. Little does she know, he's plotting to murder her so he can move on with the charming city woman. But when push comes to shove, literally, The Husband finds that he can't go through with it. What follows is a film in which The Wife is terrified and The Husband is trying to reassure her that he's had a change of heart and wants forgiveness. 

7th Heaven (1927)

gif by me

I didn't have any memories of 7th Heaven or Street Angel, just Sunrise, but now I think my favourite of the three is 7th Heaven. It gave Janet more of an acting showcase, in my opinion. She plays a young woman named Diane, who lives in squalor, who turned to prostitution, but is rescued from that lifestyle by a sweet and unassuming man who later falls in love with her, and through trial and tribulation, they get that happily ever after. I truly felt terrible for her when life wasn't going her way and honestly felt like cheering when her husband came home from the war in the end. 

Street Angel (1928)

gif by me

The premise of this is very similar to 7th Heaven, except the seventh floor apartment as an allegory for Heaven is swapped out for a circus. Janet plays a young woman named Angela who is forced into prostitution in order to buy medicine for her mother; but she gets caught and lives an almost Jean Valjean existence trying to evade the police. Meaning: she runs away, joins the circus, falls in love with Charles Farrell, gets caught, goes to jail, and then tries to redeem herself in the eyes of her love. 

DID I LIKE JANET'S MOVIES? Yes.