Trailer
Plot summary
Peter Denver, a Broadway producer, attends a cocktail party given by the actress Carlotta "Lottie" Marin and her husband Brian Mullen, and there he meets Nancy "Nanny" Ordway, a twenty-year-old who says she wants to make it in New York as a writer. Nanny talks him into asking his wife, the actress Iris Denver, who is out of town, to let her use their apartment as a place to write during the day. The Denvers return home to find Nanny hanging in their bathroom, and Lt. Bruce takes charge of the case. Peter, rumored to have been involved with her, tries to clear his name.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Black Widow (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Nunnally Johnson offered the flamboyant Broadway actress role of Carlotta Marin first to Tallulah Bankhead, who declined it as too small, then to Joan Crawford, who was not interested; Ginger Rogers finally played it.
- Van Heflin played the male lead in Black Widow only after Gregory Peck was announced for the part and William Holden passed on it.
- Maggie McNamara was cast as Nanny Ordway but illness sidelined her, and her Three Coins in the Fountain co-star Jean Peters was expected to replace her; the part instead went to former child star Peggy Ann Garner.
- Johnson tested Peggy Ann Garner for Black Widow on the recommendation of cinematographer Charles G. Clarke, who had run into her while scouting New York locations and had worked with her on Junior Miss nine years earlier.
