Want to know the best Virigina Mayo movies? How about the worst Virginia Mayo movies? Curious about Virginia Mayo box office grosses or which Virginia Mayo movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Virginia Mayo movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Virginia Mayo (1920-2005) was an American actress and dancer. In the late 1940’s she was one of one of the most popular thespians working. From 1944 to 1954 she appeared in 16 movies that crossed the $100 million (adjusted gross) mark at the box office. Her IMDb page shows 69 acting credits from 1939-1997. This page will rank 45 Virginia Mayo movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Her television appearances, shorts and uncredited roles were not included in the rankings. This page comes from a request by Søren.
Virginia Mayo 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 Virginia Mayo movies by co-stars of her movies
- Sort Virginia Mayo movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Virginia Mayo movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Virginia Mayo 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 Virginia Mayo movie received.
- Sort Virginia Mayo movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR)Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Blue link in Co-star column takes you to that star’s UMR movie page
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Virginia Mayo Table
- Sixteen Virginia Mayo movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 35.56% of her movies listed. The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946) was her biggest box office hit.
- An average Virginia Mayo movie grossed $94.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 16 Virginia Mayo movies are rated as good movies…or 35.56% of her movies. White Heat (1949) is her highest rated movie while The Silver Chalice (1954) is her lowest rated movie.
- Nine Virginia Mayo movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 20.00% of her movies.
- Two Virginia Mayo movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 4.44% of her movies.
- An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 40.00. 16 Virginia Mayo movies scored higher that average….or 35.56% of her movies. The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946) got the the highest UMR Score while Castle of Evil (1966) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Virginia Mayo
1. Virginia Clara Jones was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1920.
2. After high school, Virginia Mayo, started dancing at the St. Louis Municipal Orchestra. Shortly after that Samuel Goldwyn (he was a movie mogul) signed her to an acting contract with his company. He cast her in her first hit….1943’s Jack London.
3. Virginia Mayo appeared in 5 Danny Kaye movies. That represents almost a third of all Kaye movies. Those 5 movies grossed over 1 Billion in adjusted domestic box office.
4. After the Sultan of Morocco saw Virginia Mayo in person he said it was….”tangible proof of the existence of God.”
5. Virginia Mayo’s favorite leading men were: Alan Ladd (Bob smiles) and Gregory Peck (Flora smiles).
6. Virginia Mayo was slightly cross-eyed and had to be carefully photographed.
7. Virginia Maya was Paul Newman‘s first on screen leading lady. That would have been in 1954’s The Silver Chalice…which is her lowest rated movie according to critics and audiences.
8. Virginia Mayo was married once. She was married to actor Michael O’Shea from 1947 until his death in 1973….they had one daughter.
9. Virginia Mayo’s career domestic adjusted box office total is $4.14 BILLION…..that currently ranks her as the 23rd most successful box office actress in my database.
10. Check out Virginia Mayo‘s career compared to current and classic actors and fact #9 at Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Due to space issues on the previous table….have to list these worldwide adjusted box office grosses here
- Along the Great Divide (1951) $94.50 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- The Big Land (1957) $132.30 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1950) $234.40 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Colorado Territory (1949) $146.70 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- The Flame and the Arrow (1950) $282.30 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Flaxy Martin (1949) $42.00 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Fort Dobbs (1958) $68.60 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- The Iron Mistress (1952) $166.50 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- The Kid From Brooklyn (1946) $356.80 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Painting The Clouds With Sunshine (1951) $229.90 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) $335.40 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- She’s Back On Broadway (1953) $81.40 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- She’s Working Her Way Through College (1952) $131.20 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- The Silver Chalice (1954) $233.60 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- A Song Is Born (1948) $176.60 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- South Sea Woman (1953) $100.90 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Starlift (1951) $111.70 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- The Story of Mankind (1957) $17.50 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- The West Point Story (1950) $144.70 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Westbound (1959) $57.30 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- White Heat (1949) $190.20 million in adjusted worldwide box office
- Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) $16.90 million in adjusted worldwide b.o.
- Wonder Man (1945) $339.20 million in adjusted worldwide box office
1 STEVE Virginia’s top-flight career unfortunately didn’t survive the 1950s and in the sixties she ended up in things like the A C Lyles ‘graveyard’ cheapies Young Fury and Fort Utah in a dreadful horror flick Castle of Evil with fellow has-beens Scott Brady and David Brian
2 Bruce’s otherwise excellent profile of Ginny was for me slightly spoilt by his inclusion of Up in Arms in which she was almost non-existent and I’m glad to see that you have not made that mistake and have included just those Kaye films in which she was relevant. You and Bruce agree on 4 of Ginny’s 5 Top and I support him in placing White Heat before Best Years of Our Lives.
3 The posters throughout leave little to the imagination of “erotics” as Deanna Durbin used to call them. Anyway the pick of the fine array were I thought Red Light, The Tall Stranger, Great Day in the Morning, and two of the alternative language ones King Richard and the Crusaders and Laddie’s The Iron Mistress. [The Iron Mistress was of course not Ginny but the Bowie knife of Laddie as the famous Jim.]
4 Great stills throughout to match the posters with my personal faves being Burt and Ginny from Flame and Arrow, Ginny and Joel from Colorado Territory [a western remake of Bogie’s High Sierra], Greg and Ginny, Cag and her and the two solo eye-poppers of Virginia. A welcome 9/4/10 visual treat.
Hello Bob, thanks for checking out my ‘Ginny’ Jones video (Mayo’s real name was Virginia Jones), appreciate the review and rating.
For a while I had ‘Up in Arms’ on the chart and than I saw the poster and… where was our Ginny? She wasn’t credited. Dinah Shore was on there instead, so out it went.
Mayo was a popular screen beauty in her time and very shapely too, no one cared that she was slightly cross-eyed but the film cameraman would look for the best angle to film her. You can see her eyes clearly in the first poster for Devil’s Canyon.
Looking at my database only two of her films received full marks from my sources – White Heat and The Best Years of Our Lives – with the latter out in front. I still haven’t seen it.
Some quotes from Ginny you might find interesting –
On Burt Lancaster- “He was very intense, but much more likable then Kirk Douglas. He’s very intelligent and reads a lot. He used to keep in great shape. He was an acrobat and did his own trapeze work in one of his films.”
On Joel McCrea- “Wonderful, friendly, funny…great to work with. He loved to tell jokes, and his riding was like watching a symphony. He rode so beautifully.”
On James Cagney “He was the most dynamic man who ever appeared on the screen. He was so fabulous. He stimulated me to such an extent. I must say that I didn’t have to act very much; I just had to react to him because he was so powerful.”
On Alan Ladd- “And I worked with Alan Ladd who, along with Gregory Peck, was my favorite leading man. He was a beautiful man, charming and gentle, and I think, of all my leading men, he worked best with me.”
On Gregory Peck- “Oh, now there’s a man! He’s so fantastic, wonderful, and charming. He and Ronald Reagan were equal in charm. Greg was a better actor because he took it more seriously than Ronnie. Greg was great in love scenes. He was tender, sensitive, and a good kisser. Love scenes with him were enjoyable.”
A link to my Virginia “Hold the Mayo!” video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4-77o32_DI
UP IN ARMS (1944)
EXTRACT FROM INTERNATIONAL MOVIE DATABASE
Virginia Mayo was originally scheduled to play the leading character of Mary Morgan, but it was decided she needed more experience in front of the camera and was replaced by Constance Dowling. Mayo was reduced to performing with the “Goldwyn Girls,” but was never actually meant to be in the chorus.
1 My members have asked me to thank you for your reply to our recent enquiries. However we are still having difficulty in reconciling the matters concerned as –
(1) We feel that the fact that Lord Olivier and Mr Brando had sadly passed on when Sky Captain and Superman Returns were made actually strengthens rather than weakens their case for the inclusion of those films in their box office totals at least in comparison with other cameo players who have had such roles included in the totals.
(2) Our reasoning is that (a) we find difficulty in making a distinction between archives work that an actor performed and a movie released after his death (b) the fact that the producers entered into special arrangements to have those two legends in the films concerned illustrates that their reputations were considered a valuable albeit novelty commercial asset to the movies. Lord O and Mr B were listed 7th and 9th respectively in the main cast lists for the films
(3) M-s Mayo on the other hand had no legend or reputation to bring to Up in Arms as she was an unknown at the time and was uncredited for the film in which she was placed in the secondary cast list where her position gave her an overall mention in the 82nd spot
2 However my members have asked me to express their appreciation of your efforts to help them resolve their quandaries in the matter
Glad your member are happy…lol.