40 Photos of Anne Baxter in the 1950s

Anne Baxter (May 7, 1923 – December 12, 1985) was an American actress, star of Hollywood films, Broadway productions, and television series. She won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and seven Photoplay Awards, and was nominated for an Emmy and two Laurel Awards.

The 1950s marked a pivotal era for Baxter. She successfully transitioned from the youthful roles of the 1940s, which culminated in an Oscar for The Razor’s Edge (1946), into a versatile leading lady capable of playing both sophisticated schemers and historical icons.

Baxter began the decade with what remains her most famous role: Eve Harrington in All About Eve (1950). Playing opposite Bette Davis, Baxter delivered a masterclass in subtlety. She portrayed Eve as an ostensibly “mousy” fan who systematically dismantles the life of a Broadway star. The role earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. It redefined her screen persona from the “girl next door” to a formidable, often calculating, intellectual presence.

Throughout the mid-1950s, Baxter resisted being typecast, moving between film noir, Westerns, and massive Technicolor spectacles. In 1953, she starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess. Playing a woman caught in a blackmail plot involving a priest (Montgomery Clift), she showcased her ability to handle the psychological tension characteristic of the genre.

Her most visually iconic 1950s role was Nefretiri in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956). Dressed in elaborate, vibrant costumes, Baxter brought a campy, high-drama energy to the role that contrasted sharply with her more grounded contemporary work. Her delivery of lines like “Moses, Moses, Moses!” became a permanent fixture in Hollywood pop-culture history.

By the late 1950s, Baxter began to distance herself from the Hollywood “rat race.” In 1960, she married Randolph Galt and famously moved to a remote cattle station in the Australian Outback. This move effectively ended her period as a constant Hollywood headliner, though she would later detail this “pioneer” experience in her acclaimed memoir, Intermission. In the 1950s, however, she remained one of the industry's most technically proficient and hardworking stars, bridging the gap between the prestige of the 1940s and the evolving spectacle of the 1960s.