--- name: "Barbara O'Neil" canonical: "https://film.one/person/barbara-oneil" fi1m_id: "barbara-oneil" imdb_id: "nm0641966" tmdb_id: 7642 wikidata_id: "Q113566" roles: ["Actor"] born: "17 July 1910" died: "3 September 1980" reviewed_on_fi1m: 6 average_fi1m_score: 73 average_as: "actor" average_over: 6 updated: "2026-09-25T05:11:07.439103+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Barbara O'Neil ## Identity Barbara O'Neil - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/barbara-oneil - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** barbara-oneil - **IMDb ID:** nm0641966 - **TMDB ID:** 7642 - **Wikidata ID:** Q113566 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_O%27Neil, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q113566, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641966/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/7642 Actor. Born 17 July 1910 in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA. Died 3 September 1980. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 17 July 1910, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA - **Died:** 3 September 1980 - **Active:** 1937–1959 - **Also known as:** Barbara O'Neill - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Average Fi1m score:** 73, as actor, over 6 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1930s 77 (2), 1940s 62 (2), 1950s 81 (2) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 71 to 70 across 3 titles - **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 4 at 60–79, 0 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 0 of 6 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Drama 6, Romance 4, Crime 1, Mystery 1, Thriller 1, War 1 - **Screen time:** 14 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $415m across 2 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_O%27Neil, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q113566, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641966/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/7642 ## Streaming the US now - **Tubi:** [*The Nun's Story*](https://film.one/film/the-nuns-story.md) (84) - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Stella Dallas*](https://film.one/film/stella-dallas.md) (80) - **HBO Max:** [*Gone with the Wind*](https://film.one/film/gone-with-the-wind.md) (74) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Barbara O'Neil > Barbara O'Neil spent a career playing mothers and matriarchs, most of them older than she was, two ways: with a stillness that steadied the house, or a temper that took it over. She was never the lead; she was what the leads pushed against. Barbara O'Neil was twenty-nine when she played Scarlett O'Hara's mother, and she did it by doing very little. Ellen O'Hara in *Gone with the Wind* (1939) is the still centre of a household about to fall apart, and O'Neil plays her as the kind of authority that never raises its voice because it has never needed to. The film belongs to Vivien Leigh, as our review says, and it is the better for having one woman in it who is not trying to get anything. That was O'Neil's trade for thirty years: the mother, the matriarch, the woman at the head of the table. She came to films from the stage. Summer stock with the University Players on Cape Cod, Broadway from 1932, then *Stella Dallas* (1937), her first film, as Helen Morrison. Within three years she was in two of the largest productions Hollywood had going, and then the leads never came. She worked steadily in supporting parts through the 1940s and 1950s, including *I Remember Mama* (1948) and *The Nun's Story* (1959) and two films for Otto Preminger, and made her last screen appearance in 1970. It is the shape of a career the studios found useful rather than one they built anything around. The stillness was one setting; there was another. In *All This, and Heaven Too* (1940) she plays the Duchesse de Praslin opposite Bette Davis, and while Davis is unusually quiet, O'Neil does the shouting for everyone. The film runs 141 minutes and spends about a third of them waiting, and we noticed that we stopped waiting whenever O'Neil came in, because she was the only person on screen who seemed to want the plot to hurry up. It is a jealous, domineering part and she plays it without asking us to like her, which is rarer in a 1940 studio picture than it should be. We gave the film a 64; her scenes are not why it is low. What she was not asked to do was carry a film. The nearest anyone comes to a criticism of her is that the leading parts stopped coming, which is a criticism of the studios more than of her. She had the training for more: Sarah Lawrence, Yale's drama school and the Players are the background of someone who expected to originate roles, and on Broadway she did. For the sofa, *Gone with the Wind* is the one to see her in, though you will have to look for her, and *All This, and Heaven Too* is the one where you will not. Actresses who play mothers at twenty-nine are usually still playing them at fifty, and O'Neil was. ## Biography Barbara O'Neil was an American stage and film actress. She was born in St Louis, Missouri, on 17 July 1910 and died in Cos Cob, Connecticut, on 3 September 1980. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied acting at the Yale School of Drama before performing with the University Players summer stock company. O'Neil made her screen debut in *Stella Dallas* (1937). She played Ellen O'Hara in *Gone with the Wind* (1939) and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the Duchesse de Praslin in *All This, and Heaven Too* (1940). Her other films include *Tower of London* (1939), *Secret Beyond the Door* (1947), *I Remember Mama* (1948), *Whirlpool* (1950), *Angel Face* (1953) and *The Nun's Story* (1959). She was briefly married to writer and director Joshua Logan. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, nytimes.com.* ## On Fi1m (6) - *The Nun's Story* (1959), Fi1m 84, as Mother Didyma — [page](https://film.one/film/the-nuns-story.md) - *Angel Face* (1953), Fi1m 78, as Mrs. Catherine Tremayne — [page](https://film.one/film/angel-face.md) - *Secret Beyond the Door* (1947), Fi1m 60, as Miss Robey — [page](https://film.one/film/secret-beyond-the-door.md) - *All This, and Heaven Too* (1940), Fi1m 64, as Duchesse de Praslin — [page](https://film.one/film/all-this-and-heaven-too.md) - *Gone with the Wind* (1939), Fi1m 74, as Ellen O'Hara — [page](https://film.one/film/gone-with-the-wind.md) - *Stella Dallas* (1937), Fi1m 80, as Helen Morrison — [page](https://film.one/film/stella-dallas.md) ## Complete filmography (22) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *I leoni di Pietroburgo* (1972), as Tamila - *The Nun's Story* (1959), as Mother Didyma — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/the-nuns-story.md) - *Young Doctor Malone* (1958), series, Actor - *Flame of the Islands* (1955), as Charmaine Duryea - *Run Like a Thief* (1954), as Madame Pollard - *Dark Possession* (1954), as Emily Bell - *Angel Face* (1953), as Mrs. Catherine Tremayne — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/film/angel-face.md) - *Whirlpool* (1950), as Theresa "Terry" Randolph - *Studio One* (1948), series, as Emily Bell, Sister Frances Helen, Mrs. Cory, Margaret, Aunt Ti, Martha Henderson - *The Philco Television Playhouse* (1948), series, as Ruth, Mme. Pollard - *I Remember Mama* (1948), as Jessie Brown - *Secret Beyond the Door* (1947), as Miss Robey — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/film/secret-beyond-the-door.md) - *Shining Victory* (1941), as Miss Leeming - *All This, and Heaven Too* (1940), as Duchesse de Praslin — Fi1m 64, [page](https://film.one/film/all-this-and-heaven-too.md) - *Gone with the Wind* (1939), as Ellen O'Hara — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/gone-with-the-wind.md) - *Tower of London* (1939), as Queen Elyzabeth - *When Tomorrow Comes* (1939), as Madeleine - *The Sun Never Sets* (1939), as Helen Randolph - *I Am the Law* (1938), as Jerry Lindsay - *The Toy Wife* (1938), as Louise Brigard - *Love, Honor and Behave* (1938), as Sally Painter - *Stella Dallas* (1937), as Helen Morrison — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/film/stella-dallas.md) ## Gallery - ![Barbara O'Neil](https://film.one/media/person/103503/gallery-066d2fc24b8d.jpg) Barbara O'Neil — trailer screenshot (RKO Pictures), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Barbara_O%27Neil_in_Angel_Face_trailer.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Basil Rathbone and Barbara O'Neil in the American film The Sun Never Sets (1939) - publicity still (cropped).](https://film.one/media/person/103503/gallery-6939722b0a17.jpg) Basil Rathbone and Barbara O'Neil in the American film The Sun Never Sets (1939) - publicity still (cropped). — unknown (Universal Pictures), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Basil_Rathbone-Barbara_O%27Neil_in_The_Sun_Never_Sets.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Gone with the Wind (1939).](https://film.one/media/person/103503/gallery-168a427980b4.jpg) Gone with the Wind (1939). — Selznick International Pictures; Fred Parrish, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Gone_with_the_Wind_wedding.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Barbara O'Neil](https://film.one/media/person/103503/gallery-79d4c13e94fd.jpg) Barbara O'Neil — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1941: Best Supporting Actress (nominated), for *All This, and Heaven Too* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/barbara-oneil