Richards left Australia for Hollywood on 11 December, only a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. She arrived with only $75, all that the government would allow her to take out of the country. "I was prepared to do lectures or radio work if necessary", she later said.
MGM Within her first week in Hollywood, Richards was cast in a short,
The Woman in the House (1942), which led to a contract with
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio saw her as a "young
Greer Garson". "I had an angel on my shoulder", she said later. "The studio respected my Australian credits and treated me like a star, but they cast me as 'Ann Richards', saying 'Shirley Ann, sounded too much like a Southern belle'". (Another reason was to avoid confusion with the actress
Anne Shirley.) In June 1942 she was given a small role in
Random Harvest (1942) with
Ronald Colman and
Greer Garson. According to Richards, producer Sidney Franklin told her if she had "come to the lot earlier" she would have gotten the role of Colman's fiancé, played by Susan PEters, as that part "is supposed to remind him of his first love, Greer Garson, whom you resemble much more than Susan does." (In Australia, Richards had gone to school with the daughters of Colman's brother Eric.) This was followed by a part in
Three Hearts for Julia ("I had very little to do but it was interesting"), and then a supporting role as an Australian nurse in ''
Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant'' (1942). In April 1943 she was given the most prestigious role of her career: the female lead in
An American Romance (1944), a big-budget production from director
King Vidor starring
Brian Donlevy. Vidor had hoped to cast
Ingrid Bergman who was unavailable. "They had this girl named Ann Richards who they were hoping would take the place of Greer Garson," he said. "They asked me to make tests of her and she made excellent tests. I considered it quite a compromise." News of Richards' casting reached her parents in Australia half an hour before she received a telegraph from the army that their son Roderick, Richards' brother, was a POW in Borneo. However, the film ended up spending a lot of time in post-production and received mixed reviews when released. MGM recorded a loss on the film and Vidor refused to work for MGM again. Richards tested for
None But the Lonely Heart at RKO but lost it to June Duprez. She said she was promised parts in
Gaslight and
The Picture of Dorian Gray but did not get them. MGM was unsure what to do with Richards. "I loved MGM – except for the waiting – there were long periods when I wasn't being used", she commented later.
Hal Wallis and RKO In April 1944 Richards signed with RKO, who had been impressed by her
None But the Lonely Heart test, to make two films a year. She received offers to sign with
David O. Selznick and
Hal B. Wallis, and decided to go with Wallis believing he would be more likely to use her than Selznick. In July 1944 Wallis announced he would put her in
Love Letters and
The Searching Wind. She said, "I always wanted to be a free lance and now it looks like I'm a free lance and a contract player... isn't it wonderful?" "It was a very good part," she said. Ken Hall wanted her for
Smithy back in Australia but she was unable to accept. Wallis announced he would star Richards in an adaptation of the novel
The Crying Sisters written by
Ayn Rand and directed by
Byron Haskin. However the film was not made. RKO renewed their option on her in April 1945. They announced they would put her in
None So Blind with Charles Bickford and Joan Bennett. It was eventually made without her as
The Woman on the Beach. Instead she supported
Randolph Scott in ''
Badman's Territory (1946). That year in an interview she said she thought her British sounding accent might have held her back in Hollywood. Wallis gave her the lead role in The Searching Wind (1946) with Robert Young, but the film was not successful. In October 1946 Wallis announced Richards would make Paid in Full
from a script by Robert Blees but the film was never made. In 1947 she appeared in The Astonished Heart'' at La Jolla Playhouse alongside Dorothy McGuire.
Eagle-Lion Richards then appeared in two movies for
Eagle-Lion,
Lost Honeymoon and
Love from a Stranger. She then had the third lead in a popular film for Wallis
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). "I enjoyed working for Hal Wallis very much," she said leter. "He was a marvelous producer. He was very interested. Some people complained that he came down to the set too often, irritating the directors, but I thought he was correct: he wasn’t there to criticize but because of his interest." In 1948 she was announced for a play
Recessional by William Hurbert. Edmund Angelo bought the rights. In April 1948 she told the
Los Angeles Times she was determined to play younger parts as opposed to the more mature ones she had been doing. In February 1949 it was reported that Byron Haskin was trying to get her to star in
The Scarlet Empress to be shot in Mexico. In 1949, it was reported she was trying to get up a film called
Michelle as an independent producer.
Edmond Angelo Richards retired in 1949 following her marriage to electronics engineer Edmond Angelo. Angelo ran a successful consulting company and Richards and he raised three children together, Christopher,
Mark, and Juliet. In October 1951 it was announced she would make a film with Angelo,
The Slasher, then do a play directed by him,
Personal Triumph by Arthur Alsburg. There was also going to be a second film, ''You're So Dangerous'', where Richards would play a social worker mistaken for a gangster's moll. Eventually Richards appeared in
The Slasher, produced and directed by her husband, which was retitled
Breakdown (1952). The film was not a success and Richards appeared in no further dramatic films. Angelo decided to make no further films.
Later years After her retirement, Richards ventured into painting and poetry, publishing several well-received volumes, including
The Grieving Senses (1971) and
Odyssey for Edmond (1991). She also wrote the verse play
Helen of Troy in the 1970s, which Angelo and she presented on college campuses. They remained married until Angelo's death in 1983. Richards died in Torrance, California, on 24 August 2006. Richards had a brother who was killed in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II. ==Richards and Australia==