Trackdown star Ellen Corby did not have ''the heart of a mouse''
Typecasting ended the careers of some of our favorite stars. While it's unfortunate that breakout roles or parts they played to make a name for themselves put them inside a box, some actors did all they could to fight that image.
For those who were successful, it didn't happen overnight, especially in the 1940s and 1950s when social media was nonexistent and they couldn't instantly post to followers, industry peers, and network executives saying, "Stop offering me those roles!"
It took years, and for Ellen Corby it was a decade. After winning a Golden Globe and gaining an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal as Aunt Trina in I Remember Mama, casting directors thought the best roles for Corby were women who were little, timid, and always searching for someone strong to save her.
However, her role on Trackdown, playing Henrietta Porter, gave her career new life, one that called for her to be tough. "It's good to be hard again," Corby told The Montgomery Advertiser in 1959. "And I can't thank the producers enough for letting me show the public that I don't have the heart of a mouse." Her character was a hard-hitting newspaper editor of The Porter Enterprise on the Western, which starred Robert Culp.
"The thing I like best about Henrietta is her opinions. She is the most outspoken character in Porter, and won't take any guff from the rowdies in town. After a while, they learn it's best to leave her alone because she'll fight back with barbed words."