Want to know the best Shirley Booth movies? How about the worst Shirley Booth movies? Curious about Shirley Booth box office grosses or which Shirley Booth movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Shirley Booth movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well, you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Shirley Booth (1898-1992) was an Oscar® winning American actress. Booth is probably best remembered today for her television series Hazel. Many are surprised to learn that she was a seasoned theatrical veteran, having appeared on Broadway from 1925-70. She was highly regarded as a stage actress and ranks as one of the premier talents of the 20th-century theatre. Her IMDb page shows 15 acting credits from 1949 to 1974. This page will rank Shirley Booth movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. To do well in our overall rankings a movie has to do well at the box office, get good reviews by critics, be liked by audiences and get some award recognition. This is one of the smallest amount of movies that we ranked on one page, only our James Dean page has less movies. This comes from a request by UMR Hall of Famer bob cox.
Shirley Booth Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Shirley Booth Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Shirley Booth movies by her co-stars
- Sort Shirley Booth movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Shirley Booth movies by yearly domestic box office rank.
- Sort Shirley Booth movies by how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Shirley Booth movie received.
- Sort Shirley Booth movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Best IMDb Trivia On Shirley Booth
1. Thelma Booth Ford was born in New York City in 1898.
2. When Shirley Booth first started acting she initially used the name “Thelma Booth” when her father forbade her to use the family name professionally. She eventually changed her name to Shirley Booth.
3. Shirley Booth made her Broadway debut in the play “Hell’s Bells” opposite Humphrey Bogart (26 January 1925).
4. Shirley Booth is one of 17 actresses to have won the Triple Crown of Acting (an Oscar®, Emmy® and Tony®); the others in chronological order are Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Liza Minnelli, Rita Moreno, Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Audrey Hepburn, Anne Bancroft, Vanessa Redgrave, Maggie Smith, Ellen Burstyn, Helen Mirren, Frances McDormand, Jessica Lange, Viola Davis and Glenda Jackson.
5. Shirley Booth is one of 4 actresses to win the Best Actress Oscar® for her film debut (for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)). The others are Julie Andrews (for Mary Poppins (1964)), Barbra Streisand (for Funny Girl (1968)), and Marlee Matlin (for Children of a Lesser God (1986)).
Check out Shirley Booth’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
No James Woods but yes Shirley Booth? Did she get a mention in the UMR bible?
Okay have to admit I’ve never heard of her or recognise her face, for a second I thought it was the other Shirley from Oklahoma and Carousel.
Looking at the chart I haven’t even seen clips from those movies.
[bows out in shame]
Hey Steve….well…we have a James Woods page….he came after Shirley. Growing up I only knew Shirley Booth from her television show Hazel. Burt Lancaster suggested she not make that show…..but it turns out more people know her from televison than her brief movie career. Shirley Booth and Shirley Jones both had television shows that I grew up with….when I was beginning to understand things as I went from a child to a teen to an adult…the Shirleys and the fact both won Oscars confused me. I think I finally got it straight a couple of days ago…lol. Good stuff as always.
I have seen 2 Shirley Booth movies. About Mrs. Leslie is a favourite movie. I have also seen Come Back Little Sheba which I admire more than enjoy.
Hey Flora….we are tied with 2 when it comes to the tally count. I like the way your phrased your thoughts on Come Back, Little Shebat….”I admire more than enjoy” it. I think I will borrow that phrase on movies like Streetcar Named Desire, Schlinder’s List and others. Good stuff as always.
Flora, beautifully stated. admire rather than enjoy is why I have movies I rate highly but I do not add to my like list.
Wikipedia in fact lists details of 30 of Shirley’s plays and they include ones that were made into movies such as A Tree Grown in Brooklyn; The Philadelphia Story; My Sister Eileen; Goodbye My Fancy [which on screen starred my Joan] and the stage version of Come Back Little Myrna.
The latter in movie version is the only real box office hit in WH’s tables above but in 1952 it had no appeal for me whatsoever as I saw it as heavy “dry goods”. However I was first in the queue for Burt’s Crimson Pirate also released that year and in fact went to see that one on two consecutive nights at our local “fleapit”.
Nowadays I would probably be more appreciative of Come Back —— and will keep a look out for the cinematic movie reappearing and the possible rerun of a 1977 TV movie version of the vehicle starring Olivier/Joanne Woodward/Carrie Fisher in respectively the old Lancaster/Booth/Terry Moore roles.
Whilst Shirley’s movie career was exceptionally sparse she obvious made a considerable contribution overall to acting and this solid profile of her as an artist and a person is “Voted Up
Hey Bob. Thanks for checking out our latest Best Actress Oscar winner page. Thanks for the information on her very successful stage career. I would re-watch Burt’s Crimson Pirate again before going down the Sheba path. I found a trailer for that one…..and you can tell by that trailer it is some really bleak stuff. Thanks for the kind words and the vote up.
HI BRUCE: I used to think that Come Back Little Myrna was a Tennessee Williams creation until I discovered I was mixing it up with 1955’s The Rose Tattoo based on a Tennessee play.
The confusion arose because (1) both films seemed to me to have ‘dry goods’ themes (2) Burt was in both (3) in the two films he had leading ladies who were sparsely know to domestic movie audiences if at all: Come Back—– was Shirley’s first film; and whilst Anna Magnani had been working in the foreign movie business for over a quarter of a century when Rose Tattoo was released that was her first English speaking role in a Hollywood mainstream film. However Williams actually originally wrote the play for Anna to perform on Broadway in 1951 but she rejected the offer because of her difficulty with the English language at the time. By the time of this film adaptation she was ready. I wonder if Tennessee ever thought of writing a play specifically for Sly?
Anyway thanks for your own comments and I hope all is going well for you. As I think that I’ve told you before my daughter is a school classroom assistant and within the educational system here she is regarded as a “key worker” who while the lockdown lasts is taking one class every Wednesday at her school so that she can help teach and look after the children of other key workers in the community who cannot be at home to mind their own children. Daughter o Bob is a big background fan of your site so I guess that you educationalists are a clique who stick together!!!
I have never seen a Shirley Booth film but was aware of 4 of the 5 listed in the tables above the odd man out being Main Street to Broadway. I understand that Shirley played herself in that one in a small cameo role.
Other important names playing cameos in the movie were Ethel as well a Lionel Barrymore along with Rex Harrison and the legendary Tallulah Bankhead who for example had not long since appeared with Brando in the 1946 stage play The Eagle Has Two Heads. I had not realised though that SHIRLEY had appeared on stage with Bogie [in her 1925 debut] – see 3 of Bruce’s Trivia section above.
As Bruce shows above the box office performance of Main Street to Broadway was abysmal and in fact Wikipedia claims that its actual budget in 1953 was 3 times its actual ultimate overall US gross.
I had been unaware of Shirley’s TV success in Hazel and in fact Wiki lists 9 of her television productions including Hazel. I had also been unaware of Shirley’s great stage reputation until Bruce produced this new page and I appreciate The Work Horse drawing our attention to the matter
Hey Bob. Tally count so far…Flora and myself at 2…..and you at 0. 0 sounds bad…but you are only a long evening away from being a Shirley Booth completist. Thanks for the further information on Main Street to Broadway. She had a good career….even if the amount of movies is pretty low. Hazel alone made her a star in the States….add in an Oscar and some Tony wins and you have yourself a solid actress…and a actress that accomplished what others can only dream about. Good stuff as always.
HI BRUCE
Your James Dean pagehas just 3 movies listed so is Shirley’s page of 5 entries the one with the lowest number of films after the Dean one? Does DeNiro’s page contain the hightest number of flicks listed for any one thespian?
My tally is 2 or 40% of the Shirley Booth movies. Hot Spell and About Mrs. Leslie two of the ones I have not seen are available to watch on You Tube. So I could be up to 4 or 80% if I needed to be. That would leave Main Street To Broadway as the last Booth movie to track down. Of the two that I have seen Come Back, Little Sheba is well acted but such a downer of a movie…and The Matchmaker is just plain silly….so not thinking I have a favorite Booth movie….but I did like her in Hazel.
With this page being done, that leaves only 3 Best Actress Oscar Winners that need an UMR page: Anna Magnani, Louise Fletcher and Simone Signoret.