Betsy Blair, actress, Oscar nominee for 'Marty'

Betsy Blair and Ernest Borgnine in a scene from ''Marty,'' which was released in 1955. (United Artists via New York Times)

LOS ANGELES - Betsy Blair, an actress best remembered for playing the shy, plain-Jane school teacher who meets Ernest Borgnine's lonely Bronx butcher at the Stardust Ballroom in the 1955 movie "Marty," has died. She was 85.

Ms. Blair, who was blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s while married to screen legend Gene Kelly and later was married to director Karel Reisz, died of cancer in a London hospital on March 13, said her daughter, Kerry Kelly Novick.

The red-haired actress earned an Academy Award nomination as best actress in a supporting role as Clara Snyder in "Marty," which won the Academy Award for best picture - as well as Oscars for screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, director Delbert Mann, and Borgnine.

Ms. Blair, Los Angeles Times movie critic Edwin Schallert wrote in his review, "shines right along with (Borgnine) as the gentle and understanding wallflower whom he meets in the dance hall, and with whom he finds deep and mutual understanding, because he seems to be such a bull in a china shop himself."

Borgnine told the Times that he had just been thinking about Ms. Blair when he learned of her death.

Ms. Blair's performance in "Marty," Borgnine said, "was absolutely lovely. It was a pleasure working with her."

Ms. Blair, however, almost didn't get to play Clara, a role that Chayefsky had recommended her for: She had been blacklisted since 1950.

The actress, who had attended a weekly Marxist study group in New York City when she was 16, later came under the scrutiny of the FBI for her association with left-wing organizations such as the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, the Sleepy Lagoon Committee, and the Civil Rights Congress.

But Ms. Blair's ideals "had always been American, not Russian," she wrote in her 2003 memoir, "The Memory of All That." And her "battles and contribution - small as it may have been - were against racism, for strong unions, for the rights of women; to put it simply, for democracy."

It wasn't until Ms. Blair had done three impressive readings for the role of Clara that the subject of the blacklist came up when producer Harold Hecht phoned her and apologetically asked her if she would write a letter that would "clear" her.

As Ms. Blair recounted in her memoir, Hecht told her that she didn't have to "name names" - at least not names that hadn't already been exposed.

She wanted the part so badly that she agreed to write a letter without names. In her letter, which she described as sounding "like a schoolgirl essay for civics class," she expressed her love for her country.

But, she wrote in her book, "both Harold Hecht and I knew it wouldn't pass muster. It didn't come near what the Un-American Activities Committee wanted - no, demanded."

Finally, Kelly - one of MGM's biggest stars - intervened by asking studio head Dore Schary "to do something" to help his wife get the part or he would stop shooting the movie he was doing.

"And Dore did," Ms. Blair wrote. "He called the American Legion in Washington right there and then in front of Gene, and he vouched for me. And so I was in 'Marty.' "