Veronica Lake
circa 1942
Born	Constance Frances Marie Ockelman (1922-11-14)November 14, 1922 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	July 7, 1973(1973-07-07) (aged 50) Burlington, Vermont, U.S.
Cause of death	hepatitis and acute renal failure
Other names	Constance Keane, Connie Keane
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1939–1970
Spouse	John S. Detlie (1940–1943; 2 children) André De Toth (1944–1952; 2 children) Joseph A. McCarthy (1955–1959) Robert Carleton-Munro (1972–1973; her death)

Veronica Lake (November 14, 1922^[1] – July 7, 1973) was an American film actress and pin-up model.^[2] She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan's Travels and for her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s. She was well-known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle. Lake had a string of broken marriages and, after her career declined, had long struggles with mental illness and alcoholism.

Early life and career[link]

Lake was born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Harry E. Ockelman, of Danish-Irish descent,^[3] worked for an oil company aboard a ship. Her father died in an industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932 when she was ten. Her mother, née Constance Charlotta Trimble (1902–1992; of Irish descent),^[4] married family friend Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, a year later, and Lake began using his last name.^[5]

Lake was sent to Villa Maria, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Canada, from which she was expelled. The Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida. Lake attended Miami Senior High School in Miami, where she was known for her beauty. She had a troubled childhood and was diagnosed as schizophrenic, according to her mother.^[6]

In 1938 Lake moved with her mother and stepfather to Beverly Hills, where her mother enrolled her in the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting. Her first appearance on screen was for RKO, playing a small role among several coeds in the 1939 film, Sorority House. Similar roles followed, including All Women Have Secrets and Dancing Co-Ed. During the making of Sorority House director John Farrow first noticed how her hair always covered her right eye, creating an air of mystery about her and enhancing her natural beauty. She was then introduced, while still a teenager, to the Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr. He changed her name to Veronica Lake because the surname suited her blue eyes.

RKO subsequently dropped her contract. She married art director John S. Detlie, 14 years her senior, in 1940. A small role in the comedy, Forty Little Mothers, brought unexpected attention. In 1941 she was signed to a long-term contract with Paramount Pictures. On August 21, 1941, she gave birth to her first child, Elaine Detlie.

1940s icon[link]

Lake in her first starring role, opposite Joel McCrea in Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Her breakthrough film was I Wanted Wings in 1941, a major hit in which Lake played the second female lead and was said to have stolen scene after scene from the rest of the cast. This success was followed by Hold Back the Dawn later that year. She had starring roles in more popular movies, including Sullivan's Travels, This Gun for Hire, I Married a Witch, The Glass Key, and So Proudly We Hail!. René Clair, the director of I Married a Witch, said of Lake "She was a very gifted girl, but she didn't believe she was gifted."^[7]

For a short time during the early 1940s Lake was considered one of the most reliable box office draws in Hollywood. She became known for onscreen pairings with actor Alan Ladd. At first, the couple was teamed together merely out of physical necessity: Ladd was just 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall and the only actress then on the Paramount lot short enough to pair with him was Lake, who stood just 4 feet 11½ inches (1.51 m). They made four films together.

A stray lock of her shoulder-length, blonde hair during a publicity photo shoot led to her iconic "peekaboo" hairstyle, which was widely imitated. During World War II, Lake changed her trademark image to encourage women working in war industry factories to adopt more practical, safer hairstyles,^[8] although doing so may have damaged her career.^[9]

Although popular with the public, Lake had a complex personality and acquired a reputation for being difficult to work with. Eddie Bracken, her co-star in Star Spangled Rhythm, was quoted as saying, "She was known as 'The Bitch' and she deserved the title."^[10] In that movie, Lake took part in a song lampooning her hair style, "A Sweater, A Sarong and a Peekaboo Bang", performed with Paulette Goddard and Dorothy Lamour.^[11] Joel McCrea, her co-star in Sullivan's Travels, reputedly turned down the co-starring role in I Married a Witch, saying, "Life's too short for two films with Veronica Lake." ^[12]

Lake's career stumbled with her unsympathetic role as Nazi spy Dora Bruckman in 1944's The Hour Before the Dawn. During filming, she tripped on a lighting cable while pregnant and began hemorrhaging. She recovered, but her second child, William, was born prematurely on July 8, 1943, dying a week later from uremic poisoning.^[13] By the end of 1943 her first marriage ended in divorce. Meanwhile, scathing reviews of The Hour Before Dawn included criticism of her unconvincing German accent.

Nonetheless, Lake was earning $4,500 per week under her contract with Paramount. She had begun drinking more heavily during this period and people began refusing to work with her^{[citation needed]}. Paramount cast Lake in a string of mostly forgotten films. A notable exception was The Blue Dahlia (1946), in which she again co-starred with Ladd. During filming, screenplay writer Raymond Chandler referred to her as "Moronica Lake".^[14] Paramount decided not to renew her contract in 1948.

Looking back at her career years later, Lake remarked, "I never did cheesecake; I just used my hair." ^[15]

She married film director Andre De Toth in 1944 and had a son, Andre Anthony Michael De Toth, known as Michael De Toth (October 25, 1945 – February 24, 1991), and a daughter, Diana De Toth (born October 16, 1948). Lake was sued by her mother for support payments in 1948.

Lake earned her pilot's license in 1946 and was able to fly solo between Los Angeles and New York.^[16]

Later years[link]

After a single film for 20th Century Fox, Slattery's Hurricane (1949), her career collapsed. By the end of 1951 she had appeared in one last film (Stronghold, which she later described as "a dog"), filed for bankruptcy, and divorced de Toth. The IRS seized the remainder of her assets for unpaid taxes. Lake turned to television and stage work and in 1955 married songwriter Joseph A. McCarthy.

After breaking her ankle in 1959, Lake was unable to continue working as an actress. She and McCarthy divorced, after which she drifted between cheap hotels in Brooklyn and New York City and was arrested several times for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. A New York Post reporter found her working as a barmaid at the all-women's Martha Washington Hotel in Manhattan. ^[17] At first, Veronica claimed that she was a guest at the hotel and covering for a friend. Soon afterward, she admitted that she was employed at the bar. The reporter's widely distributed story led to some television and stage appearances, most notably in the off-Broadway revival of the musical Best Foot Forward. (Her contract overlapped with the departing Liza Minnelli and the two briefly co-starred together.) In 1966, she had a brief stint as a TV hostess in Baltimore, Maryland, along with a largely ignored film role in Footsteps in the Snow.

Her physical and mental health declined steadily. By the late 1960s Lake was in Hollywood, Florida, apparently immobilized by paranoia (which included claims she was being stalked by the FBI).^[18]

She spent a brief period in England, where she appeared in the plays, Madame Chairman and A Streetcar Named Desire.

When Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake (Bantam, 1972) was published, she promoted the book with a memorable interview on The Dick Cavett Show, as well as an episode of To Tell the Truth, on which the panel had to guess which of three disguised women was the "real" Veronica Lake. Two of the panelists, Bill Cullen and Peggy Cass, quickly disqualified themselves because they knew her. With the proceeds, she co-produced and starred in her last film, Flesh Feast (1970), a very low budget horror movie with a Nazi-myth storyline. She then moved to the UK, where she had a short-lived marriage with an "English sea captain", Robert Carleton-Munro, before returning to the U.S. in 1973, having filed for divorce.^[19]

Lake was immediately hospitalized. Although she had made a cheerful and positive impression on the nurses who cared for her, she apparently was estranged from her three surviving children, particularly her daughters. Elaine Detlie became known as Ani Sangge Lhamo after becoming a member of the Subud faith in New Zealand.^[20] Diana became a secretary for the U.S. Embassy in Rome in the 1970s.^[20] Michael De Toth stayed with his mother on and off through the 1960s and 1970s. He married Edwina Mae Niecke. When Lake died, he claimed her body.

Death[link]

Lake died on July 7, 1973, of hepatitis and acute renal failure (complications of her alcoholism) in Burlington, Vermont, where her death was certified by Dr. Wareen Beeken at the Fletcher Allen Hospital, and where she was seen by many staff members during her nearly two-week stay.^[21] A rumor persists that she died in Montreal and was smuggled across the border to Vermont.^[22] Vermont state death records, however, confirm that she died in Burlington, Vermont.^[23]

As she requested, her ashes were scattered off the coast of the Virgin Islands. A memorial service was held in Manhattan, but only her son and a handful of strangers attended. In 2004 some of Lake's ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store.^[24] Her son, Michael, died on February 24, 1991, at age 45 in Olympia, Washington.

Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to the motion picture industry. She remains a legendary star today and her autographs and other memorabilia continue to draw high prices^{[citation needed]} on eBay and other popular outlets.

In popular culture[link]

Lake's name was commonly reversed to become a comic geographic name. For example, in an episode of The Bob Newhart Show, Carol Kester tells how the girls in her summer camp swam across Lake Veronica to visit the boys.^{[citation needed]}

Quotes[link]

• "I wasn't a sex symbol, I was a sex zombie."^[25]
• "You could put all the talent I had into your left eye and still not suffer from impaired vision."^[26]
• "I've reached a point in my life where it's the little things that matter... I was always a rebel and probably could have got much further had I changed my attitude. But when you think about it, I got pretty far without changing attitudes. I'm happier with that." (1970)

Film and television credits[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Lenburg, Jeff, Peekaboo: The Story of Veronica Lake. iUniverse, 2001. ISBN 978-0-595-19239-7.
• Oderman, Stuart, Talking to the Piano Player 2. BearManor Media, 2009. ISBN 978-1-59393-320-3.

External links[link]

	Biography portal
	United States portal
	Film portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Veronica Lake

• Veronica Lake at the Internet Movie Database
• Veronica Lake at the TCM Movie Database
• Veronica Lake at AllRovi
• Photographs and literature

Alan Walbridge Ladd (September 3, 1913 – January 29, 1964) was an American film actor.^[1]

Early life[link]

Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter. The family then moved again to North Hollywood, California where Ladd became a high-school swimming and diving champion and participated in high school dramatics at North Hollywood High School, graduating on February 1, 1934. He opened his own hamburger and malt shop, which he called Tiny's Patio. He worked briefly as a studio carpenter (as did his stepfather) and for a short time was part of the Universal Pictures studio school for actors. But Universal decided he was too blond and too short and dropped him.^[2] Intent on acting, he found work in radio.

Career[link]

Ladd began by appearing in dozens of films in small roles, including Citizen Kane in which he played one of the "faceless" reporters who are always shown in silhouette. He first gained some recognition with a featured role in the wartime thriller Joan of Paris, 1942.^[3] For his next role, his manager, Sue Carol, found a vehicle which made Ladd's career, Graham Greene's This Gun for Hire in which he played "Raven," a hitman with a conscience. "Once Ladd had acquired an unsmiling hardness, he was transformed from an extra to a phenomenon. Ladd's calm slender ferocity make it clear that he was the first American actor to show the killer as a cold angel." - David Thomson (A Biographical Dictionary of Film, 1975) ^[4]

Both the film and Ladd's performance played an important role in the development of the "gangster" genre: "That the old fashioned motion picture gangster with his ugly face, gaudy cars, and flashy clothes was replaced by a smoother, better looking, and better dressed bad man was largely the work of Mr. Ladd." - New York Times obituary (January 30, 1964).^[4] Ladd was teamed with actress Veronica Lake in this film, and despite the fact that it was Robert Preston who played the romantic lead, the Ladd-Lake pairing captured the public's imagination, and would continue in another three films. (They appeared in a total of seven films together, but three were only guest shots in all-star musical revues.)

Ladd went on to star in many Paramount Pictures' films,^[5] with a brief timeout for military service in the United States Army Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit. He appeared in Dashiell Hammett's story The Glass Key, his second pairing with Lake, and Lucky Jordan with Helen Walker. His cool, unsmiling persona proved popular with wartime audiences, and he was quickly established as one of the top box office stars of the decade.^[6]

In 1946, he starred in a trio of silver screen classics: the big screen adaptation of Richard Henry Dana's maritime classic, Two Years Before the Mast (for which he also received critical acclaim), the Raymond Chandler original mystery The Blue Dahlia (his third pairing with Lake), and the World War II espionage thriller O.S.S..

He formed his own production companies for film and radio and then starred in his own syndicated series Box 13, which ran from 1948-49. Ladd and Robert Preston starred in the 1948 western film, Whispering Smith, which in 1961 would become a short-lived NBC television series, starring Audie Murphy.

In the 1949 version of The Great Gatsby, Ladd had the featured role of Jay Gatsby.

Jean Arthur and Alan Ladd in Shane (1953)

Ladd played the title role in the 1953 western Shane. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It was listed at No. 45 on the American Film Institute's 2007 ranking of "100 Years ... 100 Movies."

Ladd made the Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll three times: in 1947, 1953, and 1954.^[2] In 1954 exhibitors voted him the most popular star among British film-goers.^[7]

When former agent Albert R. Broccoli formed Warwick Films with his partner Irving Allen, they heard Ladd was unhappy with Paramount and was leaving the studio. With his wife and agent Sue Carol, they negotiated for Ladd to appear in the first three of their films made in England and released through Columbia Pictures: The Red Beret/Paratrooper (1953); Hell Below Zero (1954), based on Hammond Innes's book The White South; and The Black Knight (1954). All three were co-written by Ladd's regular screenwriter Richard Maibaum.^[8] In 1954 Ladd formed a new production company, Jaguar Productions, originally releasing his films through Warner Bros. and then with All the Young Men through Columbia.

In November 1962, he was found lying unconscious in a pool of blood with a bullet wound near his heart, an unsuccessful suicide attempt.^[2] In 1963 Ladd filmed a supporting role in The Carpetbaggers. He would not live to see its release. On January 29, 1964 he was found dead in Palm Springs, California, of an acute overdose of "alcohol and three other drugs", at the age of 50; his death was ruled accidental.^[9] He was entombed in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Not until June 28, 1964 did Carpetbaggers producer Joseph E. Levine hold an elaborate premiere screening in New York City with an afterparty staged by his wife at The Four Seasons Restaurant.^[10]

Alan Ladd has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1601 Vine Street.^[11] His handprint appears in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater, in Hollywood.

Personal life[link]

Alan Ladd's mother was Selina Rowley, born Chester-le-Street County Durham, in late 1888. She used the stage name Ina Raleigh and emigrated to the USA in 1907, aged 19.

He had married a high-school acquaintance, Midge Harrold. Their only child, a son named Alan Ladd, Jr., was born in 1937. Ladd's stepfather died suddenly. Then his mother, who suffered from depression, committed suicide by poison.

In 1942, Ladd married his agent/manager, former movie actress Sue Carol.

Ladd owned properties in Beverly Hills and, in Palm Springs, Alan Ladd Hardware. His son by his first wife Midge Harrold, Alan Ladd, Jr., is a motion picture executive and producer and founder of The Ladd Company. His daughter actress Alana, who co-starred with her father in Guns of the Timberland and Duel of Champions, is married to the veteran talk radio broadcaster Michael Jackson. Another son, actor David Ladd, who co-starred with Ladd as a child in The Proud Rebel, married Charlie's Angels star Cheryl Ladd, 1973-1980. Actress Jordan Ladd is his granddaughter.^[12]

As with many Hollywood stars, Ladd is sometimes described as either a social adherent to, or member of, the gay subculture.^[13] No reliable evidence has been published to substantiate such claims, but they do exist. At least one gay historian has gone so far with speculation as to suggest that Ladd's suicide attempt(s) may have been related to unsubstantiated sexual questioning.^[14]

Reports of his height vary from 5'5" to 5'9" (from his military records) (1.65 to 1.75 m), with 5'6" (1.68 m) being the most generally accepted today.^[2][15]

Filmography[link]

Features[link]

Short subjects[link]

• Unfinished Rainbows (1940)
• Meat and Romance (1940)
• Blame It on Love (1940)
• American Portrait (1940)
• I Look at You (1941)
• Training Film No. A-3: Military Training (1941)
• Letter from a Friend (1943)
• Screen Snapshots: Hollywood in Uniform (1943)
• Skirmish on the Home Front (1944)
• Hollywood Victory Caravan (1945)
• Screen Snapshots: The Skolsky Party (1946)
• Eyes of Hollywood (1949)
• Grantland Rice Sportlight No. R11-10: A Sporting Oasis (1952)

Box Office Ranking[link]

For a number of years, film exhibitors voted him among the top stars at the box office.

• 1946 - 8th (Britain)^[16]
• 1947 - 7th (Britain)^[17]
• 1949 - 7th (Britain)^[18]
• 1951 - 17th (USA),^[19] 8th (Britain)^[20]
• 1952 - 16th (USA)^[21]
• 1953 - 4th (USA)^[22]
• 1954 - 6th (USA)^[23], 1st (Britain)^[24]
• 1955 - 17th (USA)^[25]
• 1956 - 25th (USA)^[26]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Alan Ladd at the Internet Movie Database
• Alan Ladd at the TCM Movie Database
• Official website
• Alan Ladd at Virtual History

Claudette Colbert
Studio publicity portrait
Born	Emilie Claudette Chauchoin (1903-09-13)13 September 1903 Paris, France
Died	30 July 1996(1996-07-30) (aged 92) Speightstown, Barbados
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1923–1987
Spouse	Norman Foster (m.1928-1935; divorced) Dr. Joel Pressman (m.1935-1968; his death)

Claudette Colbert (/koʊlˈbɛər/; 13 September 1903 – 30 July 1996) was an American actress of stage and film.

Born in Paris, France, and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures. She established a successful film career with Paramount Pictures, and was recognized as one of the leading female exponents of screwball comedy. Colbert was the highest paid actress in American cinema during late 1930s, and later became a freelance performer. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her comedic performance in It Happened One Night (1934), and also received Academy Award nominations for her dramatic roles in Private Worlds (1935) and Since You Went Away (1944).

Colbert's film career declined in the 1950s, and finished in 1961. Later in life, she returned to theater, except brief appearances in television. Her intermittent career lasted more than six decades. She moved in later life to Barbados, where she died at the age of 92, following a series of strokes.

Colbert received theatre awards from the Sarah Siddons Society, a lifetime-achievement award at the Kennedy Center Honors, and, in 1999, the American Film Institute placed her at number twelve on their "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars" list of the "50 Greatest American Screen Legends".^[1]

Early life[link]

Commemorative plate on Colbert's birthplace in Paris, France.

Émilie Claudette Chauchoin^[2][3] was born in Saint-Mandé, Seine, France,^[4] to Georges Claude Chaucoin, a banker, and Jeanne (née Loew) Chauchoin, a pastry cook.^[5][6] After some financial reversals, her family emigrated to New York City in 1906.^[6][7] Colbert eventually became a naturalized citizen of the U.S.^[8]

Colbert studied at Washington Irving High School, where her speech teacher, Alice Rossetter, encouraged her to audition for a play she had written. Colbert made her stage debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in The Widow's Veil at the age of 15.

She attended the Art Students League of New York, intending to become a fashion designer, but appeared on the Broadway stage in a small role in The Wild Westcotts (1923). Inspired by her experience, Colbert ended her studies and embarked on a stage career in 1925.^[9] She adopted the name "Claudette Colbert" as her stage name two years later; she had been using the name Claudette since high school.

Career[link]

Theatre beginnings[link]

After signing a five-year contract with the producer Al Woods, Colbert played ingenue roles on Broadway from 1925 through 1929. During her early years on stage, she fought against being typecast as a maid, and received critical acclaim on Broadway in the production of The Barker (1927), playing a carnival snake charmer. She later reprised this role for the play's run in London's West End.^[10] Colbert was noticed by the theatrical producer Leland Hayward, who suggested her for a role in Frank Capra's film For the Love of Mike (1927), now believed to be lost.^[11] The film, Colbert's only silent film role, was a box office failure.^[5]

Success with Paramount[link]

Colbert continued her stage career, but ultimately signed a contract with Paramount Pictures in 1928. Her first sound film was The Hole in the Wall (1929), co-starring Edward G. Robinson. During production of her second sound film, The Lady Lies (also in 1929), Colbert was appearing nightly in the play See Naples and Die. Her then two plays, Eugene O'Neill's Dynamo and See Naples and Die (1929), were unsuccessful. Her earliest films were produced in New York. In 1930 she was cast in The Big Pond, which was filmed in both English and French, and Colbert's fluency in both languages. She appeared opposite Maurice Chevalier, who commented of her, "She was lovely, brunette, talented and a delicious comedienne, and her English was perfect."^[12] While these films were popular with audiences, one of her films from this period, Young Man of Manhattan, her only collaboration with her first husband, Norman Foster, received negative notices. The magazine Picturegoer criticized Foster's performance and noted him as one of Colbert's weakest leading men, writing, "He did not seem to get any sincerity into his love scenes."^[12] She also appeared in Mysterious Mr. Parkes, which was a French-language version of Slightly Scarlet for the European market, although it was also screened in the United States.

She co-starred with Fredric March in Manslaughter (1930), and received good reviews for her performance as a rich girl, jailed for vehicular manslaughter.^[13] The New York Times wrote, "It cannot be denied that Claudette Colbert—given an even chance—is capable of excellent acting."^[14] She was briefly paired with March, and they made four films together, including Dorothy Arzner's Honor Among Lovers (1931). She sang in her role opposite Maurice Chevalier in the Ernst Lubitsch musical The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and was acknowledged by critics for her ability to assert herself opposite the more experienced Miriam Hopkins.^[12]

Cecil B. DeMille perceived Colbert as a femme fatale, and her films with him included partial nudity. (In the 1932 historical epic, The Sign of the Cross, she was cast opposite Fredric March as the Roman empress Poppaea. Glimpses of her bare breasts and nipples were visible in a scene where her character was bathing in asses' milk,^[15] a scene that came to be regarded as an example of Hollywood decadence prior to the enforcement of the Production Code).^[16] Later that year, she played in The Phantom President. In 1933, Colbert renegotiated her contract with Paramount to allow her to appear in films for other studios.

Career breakthrough[link]

Colbert shows co-star Clark Gable how to hitchhike in It Happened One Night (1934)

Colbert was reluctant to appear as the "runaway heiress", Ellie Andrews, in the Frank Capra romantic comedy, It Happened One Night (1934), opposite Clark Gable and released by Columbia Pictures. Behind schedule after several actresses had refused the role, the studio accepted Colbert's demand that she be paid $50,000 and that filming was to be completed within four weeks to allow her to take a planned vacation. Colbert felt that the script was weak, and Capra recalled her dissatisfaction, commenting, "Claudette fretted, pouted and argued about her part... she was a tartar, but a cute one."^[17]

The film contained at least one scene that is often cited as representative of the screwball film genre and which became well known, even by people who had not seen the entire film.^[18][19] Stranded in the countryside, Colbert demonstrates to an astonished Gable how to hitchhike by displaying her leg. Colbert won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role. The film was the first to sweep all five major Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, and was a resounding box-office success. In later life, Colbert reflected upon her misgivings about the film and her lack of confidence when it was completed, commenting, "I left wondering how the movie would be received. It was right in the middle of the Depression. People needed fantasy, they needed splendor and glamour, and Hollywood gave it to them. And here we were, looking a little seedy and riding on our bus".^[20]

In Cleopatra (1934)

In Cleopatra (1934), she played the title role opposite Warren William as Julius Caesar, and Henry Wilcoxon as Marc Antony. Thereafter, Colbert did not wish to be portrayed as overtly sexual and later refused such roles.^[21] During 1934, Colbert's film career flourished. Of the four films she made that year, three of them—the historical biography, Cleopatra, the romantic drama, Imitation of Life, and the screwball comedy, It Happened One Night—were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture.

Popularity established[link]

Colbert's success allowed her to renegotiate her contract, raising her salary. In 1935 and 1936, she was listed in the annual "Quigley Poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars", which was compiled from the votes of movie exhibitors throughout the U.S. for the stars who had generated the most revenue in their theaters over the previous year.^[22] She received a second Academy Award nomination for her role in the hospital drama, Private Worlds (1935).

In 1936, Colbert signed a new contract with Paramount Pictures, which required her to make seven films over a two-year period, and this contract made her Hollywood's highest paid actress.^[23] This was followed by a contract renewal in 1938, after which she was reported to be the highest paid performer in Hollywood with a salary of $426,924.^[24] Her films during this period include The Gilded Lily (1935) and The Bride Comes Home (1935) with Fred MacMurray, She Married Her Boss (1935) with Melvyn Douglas, Under Two Flags (1936) with Ronald Colman, Maid of Salem (1937), again with MacMurray, Tovarich (1937) with Charles Boyer, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938) with Gary Cooper, Zaza (1939) with Herbert Marshall, Midnight (1939) with Don Ameche, and It's a Wonderful World (1939) with James Stewart.

In the film Tovarich (1937)

With her success, Colbert was able to assert control over the manner in which she was portrayed and gained a reputation for being fastidious by refusing to be filmed from her right side. She believed that her face was uneven and photographed better from the left. She learned about lighting and cinematography, and refused to begin filming until she was satisfied that she would be shown to her best advantage. One example of Colbert's determination to control the way she was photographed occurred during the filming of Tovarich in 1937, when one of her favored cameramen was dismissed by the director, Anatole Litvak. After seeing the rushes filmed by the replacement, Colbert refused to continue. She insisted on hiring her own cameraman, and offered to waive her salary if the film went over budget as a result.^[23] Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) with Henry Fonda was Colbert's first color film. However, she distrusted the relatively new Technicolor process and feared that she would not photograph well, preferring thereafter to be filmed in black and white.^[25]

During this time she began acting for CBS' popular Lux Radio Theater, making numerous appearances between 1935 and 1954.^[26]

Continued success[link]

In 1940, Colbert refused a seven-year contract that would have paid her $200,000 a year, as she had found that she could command a fee of $150,000 per film as a freelance artist. With her brother as her manager, Colbert was able to secure roles in prestigious films, and this period marked the height of her earning ability.^[23] In the early 1940s she starred in such films as Boom Town (1940), with Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and Hedy Lamarr; Arise, My Love (1940), with Ray Milland; and the Preston Sturges comedy The Palm Beach Story (1942), opposite Joel McCrea.

In So Proudly We Hail! (1943)

After more than a decade as a leading actress, Colbert began to make a transition to more mature characters, though she was reportedly very sensitive about her age. During filming of So Proudly We Hail! (1943), with Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake, a rift occurred when Colbert overheard a remark made by Goddard in an interview. Asked which of her costars she preferred, Goddard had replied, "Veronica, I think. After all, we are closer in age." (Actually, Goddard (b. 1910) was 12 years older than Lake (b. 1922) and only 7 years younger than Colbert (b. 1903), making her considerably closer in age to Colbert, so this may have been an intentional slight). Goddard further commented that Colbert "flipped" and "was at Paulette's eyes at every moment," and said that they continued their feud throughout the duration of filming.^[27]

Impressed by her performance in this film, but aware of Colbert's sensitivity, David O. Selznick approached her to play the lead role in Since You Went Away (1944). She balked at the prospect of playing a mother of teenaged children, but Selznick believed that she was the best candidate for the role. He valued her marketability, commenting that "even light little comedies with her have never done under a million and a half."^[28] Eventually, Colbert accepted. The director, John Cromwell, later noted that Colbert was "level headed, very professional and with no temperament", but Selznick expressed frustration with some of her demands. He wrote in a memo to Colbert's agent that they had rebuilt several sets "because of her refusal to have the right side of her face photographed, on top of which we have to pay her not only a fabulous salary, but also give her two days off a month, which works out to $5000 every four weeks for doing absolutely nothing, and now she's demanding three.... Tell her there's a war on and we all have to make some sacrifices."^[29]

Released in June 1944, the film became a substantial success and grossed almost $5 million in the United States. The critic James Agee praised aspects of the film, but particularly Colbert's performance, writing, "Selznick has given Claudette Colbert the richest, biggest role of her career. She rewards him consistently with smooth Hollywood formula acting, and sometimes, in collaboration with (Joseph) Cotten, with flashes of acting that are warmer and more mature."^[30] Colbert received her final Academy Award nomination for this performance.

In The Secret Heart (1946)

In 1945, Colbert ended her association with Paramount Studios, and continued to free-lance in such films as Guest Wife (1945), with Don Ameche. RKO Studios hired her to appear opposite John Wayne in Without Reservations (1946), with a storyline and setting intentionally inspired by It Happened One Night.^[31] Without Reservations grossed $3 million in the U.S.,^[32] and the overall popularity of Colbert's films during 1946 led to her making a final appearance in the "Quigley Poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars".^[22] She achieved her last great success opposite Fred MacMurray in the comedy The Egg and I (1947). The film was one of the year's biggest hits, and was later acknowledged as the 12th most profitable American film of the 1940s.^[33] Her subsequent films failed to capitalize on her renewed success, with the exception of the suspense film Sleep, My Love (1948) with Robert Cummings.

Film career struggles[link]

Colbert lost two roles originally intended for her, and which were highly successful ventures for each of the actresses who replaced her. She was signed to appear in State of the Union with Gary Cooper, who was replaced by Spencer Tracy. Two days before filming began, Colbert advised the director Frank Capra that she was unable to work beyond 5 p.m. each day, citing "doctor's orders". Capra refused to accommodate her terms and cast Katharine Hepburn in the role.^[34]

In 1949, Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote the part of Margo Channing in All About Eve for Colbert, feeling that she best represented the style of the older actress he envisioned for the part. Mankiewicz admired her "sly wit and sense of class" and felt that she would play the part as an "elegant drunk", who would easily win the support of the audience. Colbert was enthusiastic about the role, and after a succession of noble roles, relished the prospect of playing what she described as a more "feline" character. Before production started, Colbert severely injured her back, while filming a scene for Three Came Home. Although 20th Century Fox postponed the production of All About Eve for two months while she convalesced, she was still not fit enough to take the role and was replaced by Bette Davis. Years later, Mankiewicz commented that he still imagined how effectively Colbert would have embodied the role, and how greatly her portrayal would have differed from Davis's.^[35] Colbert described her loss of the role as one of her great regrets, and said that she wished she could have played the role, even if it had been "in a wheelchair".^[36]

Her films of this period received mixed reception. The RKO comedy Bride for Sale, in which Colbert was part of a love triangle that included George Brent and Robert Young, was well reviewed and modestly successful. The Secret Fury (1950), also for RKO, was a mystery melodrama that was widely panned, with one critic commenting that Colbert and her co-star Robert Ryan "wandered through the film like two abandoned children in search of their father".^[37]

Later career[link]

In the early 1950s, Colbert traveled to Europe and began making fewer films. She appeared in the French film Royal Affairs in Versailles, one of only two films she made in her native country, and a success at the local box-office.^[38] Colbert had a supporting role rather than top billing in the film, which also featured a number of well known French cinema performers.^[39]

In 1954, after a successful appearance in a television version of The Royal Family, she began acting in various teleplays. From 1954 to 1960, she appeared in the television adaptations of Blithe Spirit in 1956 and The Bells of St. Mary's in 1959. She also guest starred on Robert Montgomery Presents, Playhouse 90, and Zane Grey Theater.

In 1958, she returned to Broadway in The Marriage-Go-Round, for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Tony Award.

By 1955 she had stopped making films, although returned to the screen in Parrish (1961) for Warner Brothers. When the film was released, most of the studio publicity was in support of the young male lead Troy Donahue, who was being groomed by the studio. Colbert, playing the supporting role of Donahue's mother, received little attention, and the film was not a success. She never made another film appearance although the press occasionally referred to upcoming projects that did not exist. Embarrassed, Colbert instructed her agent to stop his attempts to generate interest in her as a film actress. In the late 1960s, a reporter asked her why she had made no more films, to which she replied, "Because there have been no offers."^[40]

Her occasional acting ventures were limited to theater and included performances on Broadway and in London in The Irregular Verb to Love (1963); The Kingfisher (1978) in which she co-starred with Rex Harrison, and Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All? (1985) also with Rex Harrison.

In 1987, Colbert appeared in a supporting role in the television miniseries The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. The production was a ratings success and was nominated for several awards. Colbert won a Golden Globe and received a nomination for an Emmy Award. This marked her final performance on television, however she continued to act in theater.

Personal life[link]

In 1928, Colbert married Norman Foster, an actor and director, who appeared with Colbert in the Broadway show The Barker. She and her first husband lived apart, never sharing a home together in Hollywood,^[41] supposedly because Colbert's mother disliked Foster and would not allow him into their home.^[42] Colbert and Foster divorced in 1935.

In December of that year, Colbert married Dr. Joel Pressman, a surgeon at UCLA.^[5] The marriage lasted 33 years, until Pressman's death of liver cancer in 1968.

Colbert had one brother, Charles (1898–1971), who used the surname Wendling and served as her agent and business manager for a time.^[6] He is credited with negotiating some of her more lucrative contracts in the late 1930s and early 1940s.^[12]

Later in life, Colbert claimed she was a staunch Republican and conservative.^[43] For years, Colbert divided her time between her apartment in Manhattan and her summer home in Speightstown, Barbados.^[5]

Death[link]

After suffering a series of strokes in 1993, she took up permanent residence at her home in Barbados, where she died on July 30, 1996, at age 92.^[5] Colbert is buried in the Parish of St. Peter Cemetery in Barbados.^[44] Colbert left no immediate family.^[5]

The bulk of Colbert's estate was left to a friend, Helen O'Hagan, a retired director of corporate relations at Saks Fifth Avenue, whom Colbert had met in 1961 on the set of the her last film. O'Hagan cared for Colbert following her 1993 strokes.^[45]

Contemporary reception[link]

Colbert established one of the most successful film careers of any actress of her generation, and was considered a dependable and bankable star. Her status was reflected in her earnings as one of the best paid performers of the 1930s and 1940s. Colbert once commented that she had sacrificed for the sake of her career. In discussing Colbert's career, her contemporaries confirmed her drive. Irene Dunne commented that she had lacked Colbert's "terrifying ambition" and noted that if Colbert "finished work on a film on a Saturday, she would be looking for a new project by Monday". Hedda Hopper wrote that Colbert placed her career "ahead of everything save possibly her marriage", and described her as the "smartest and canniest" of Hollywood actresses, with a strong sense of what was best for her, and a "deep rooted desire to be in shape, efficient and under control".^[27]

Other actors admired Colbert's comic timing; David Niven related in his biography that Gary Cooper was "terrified" at the prospect of working with Colbert in his first comedy, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, because he considered Colbert to be an expert in the genre. The film gave Niven one of his first significant parts, and he wrote that Colbert took a nurturing role towards him and "was the soul of fun and a most generous performer," although he noted that her insistence that she be filmed only from her left side created difficulties for the cameramen.^[46] Her fastidious attitude in this regard became well known, with Doris Day quoted as saying, "God wasted half a face on Claudette". During her heyday, film technicians described the right side of her face as "the dark side of the moon."^[27] In a 1930s interview Constance Bennett replied to questions about her own demands, with the comment that Colbert's idiosyncrasies were far more excessive, but Bennett acknowledged that it was an integral part of Colbert's success.^[23] Colbert was generally respected for her professionalism, with the New York Times stating that she was known for giving "110 percent" to any project she worked on, and she was highly regarded for learning the technical aspects of studio lighting and cinematography that allowed her to maintain a distinctive film image.^[23] In her biography, Myrna Loy stated that Colbert, along with Joan Crawford, "knew more about lighting than the experts did."^[47]

Modern critics and film historians note that Colbert demonstrated versatility throughout her career, and played characters that ranged from vamps to housewives, and that encompassed screwball comedy and drama.^[23] Pauline Kael wrote that Colbert was widely admired by American audiences from the time of It Happened One Night because she represented "Americans' idealized view of themselves—breezy, likable, sexy, gallant and maybe just a little hare-brained."^[18]

Colbert found it difficult to make the transition to playing more mature characters as she approached middle-age and expressed her admiration for Bette Davis. Colbert noted that Davis had made the transition more easily because she had shrewdly played character roles as a young woman.^[27] Praised for her sense of style and awareness of fashion, Colbert ensured throughout her career that she was impeccably groomed and costumed. For the 1946 melodrama, Tomorrow is Forever, Jean Louis was hired to create eighteen changes of wardrobe for her.^[48]

When Colbert received a Kennedy Center Honor, her fashion sense was referred to with a quotation from Jeanie Basinger in The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers: "[Her] glamour is the sort that women attain for themselves by using their intelligence to create a timeless personal style."^[49] The writer A. Scott Berg described Colbert as one of Paramount Studio's greatest assets, as she had "proved deft in all genres" and had "helped define femininity for her generation with her chic manner."^[50]

She is cited as a leading female exponent of screwball comedy, along with such actresses as Jean Arthur, Irene Dunne, Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy and Rosalind Russell. In her comedy films, she invariably played shrewd and self-reliant women, but unlike many of her contemporaries, Colbert rarely engaged in physical comedy. Her characters were more likely to be observers and commentators.^[51]

Filmography[link]

Awards and honors[link]

Colbert was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for three films, It Happened One Night (1935), Private Worlds (1936), and Since You Went Away (1945), winning for It Happened One Night. In addition, she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-series, or Motion Picture Made for Television for her role in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1988), and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the same.

Claudette Colbert remains the only actress in the history of cinema to star in three films in the same year to be nominated for Best Picture Academy Award, those films being Cleopatra, Imitation of Life, and It Happened One Night which were all made in 1934.^{[citation needed]} In 2002, John C. Reilly starred in The Hours, Chicago, and Gangs of New York, each of which was similarly nominated for Best Picture.

In 1980, Colbert was awarded the Sarah Siddons Award for her theatre work.^[52] In 1984, Colbert was awarded the Gala Tribute award by the Film Society of Lincoln Center.^[53] The same year, a building at the old Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York, where she had made ten films in early career, was renamed in her honor.^[54] In 1985, Colbert was awarded a Drama Desk Special Award.^[55]

In 1989, Colbert received Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement.^[49] In 1990, Colbert was honored with the San Sebastián International Film Festival Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award.^[56]

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Claudette Colbert has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6812 Hollywood Blvd.^[57]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Anderson, Christopher (1997). An Affair to Remember, The Remarkable Love Story of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. William Morrow and Co. Inc. ISBN 0-688-15311-9
• Berg, A. Scott (1989). Goldwyn. Sphere Books. ISBN 0-7474-0593-X
• Chandler, Charlotte (2006). The Girl Who Walked Home Alone, Bette Davis, A Personal Biography. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-6208-5
• Chaneles, Sol (1974). The Movie Makers. Octopus Books. ISBN 07064038708
• DiBattista, Maria (2001). Fast Talking Dames. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09903-7
• Edmonds, I. G. and Mimura, Reiko (1980). The Oscar Directors. Tantivy Press. ISBN 0-498-02444-X
• Edwards, Anne (1988). The DeMilles, An American Family. William Collins, Sons & Co. ISBN 0-00-215241-X
• Finler, Joel W. (1989). The Hollywood Story: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the American Film Industry But Didn't Know Where to Look. Pyramid Books. ISBN 1-85510-009-6
• Harris, Warren G. (2002). Clark Gable, A Biography. Aurum Press. ISBN 1-85410-904-9
• Haver, Ronald (1980). David O. Selznick's Hollywood. Bonanza Books, New York. ISBN 0-517-47665-7
• Hirschnor, Joel (1983). Rating the Movie Stars for Home Video, TV and Cable. Publications International Limited. ISBN 0-88176-152-4
• Jewell, Richard B. and Harbin, Vernon (1982). The RKO Story, Octopus Books. ISBN 0-7064-1285-0
• Kael, Pauline (1984). 5001 Nights at the Movies. Zenith Books. ISBN 0-09-933550-6
• Karney, Robyn (1984). The Movie Stars Story, An Illustrated Guide to 500 of the World's Most Famous Stars of the Cinema. Octopus Books. ISBN 0-7064-2092-6
• Kotsilibas-Davis and Loy, Myrna (1988). Being and Becoming. Donald I. Fine Inc. ISBN 15566111010
• Niven, David (1976). Bring on the Empty Horses. Putnam. ISBN 03991154200
• Quirk, Lawrence J. (1974). Claudette Colbert An Illustrated Biography. Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-517-55678-2
• Shipman, David (1970). The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years. Bonanza Books, New York. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 78-133803
• Shipman, David (1988). Movie Talk. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-03403-2
• Springer, John (1978). They Had Faces Then, Annabella to Zorina, the Superstars, Stars and Starlets of the 1930s. ISBN 0-8065-0657-1

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Claudette Colbert

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Claudette Colbert

• Claudette Colbert at the Internet Broadway Database
• Claudette Colbert at the Internet Movie Database
• Claudette Colbert at the TCM Movie Database

• Claudette Colbert at AllRovi

Paulette Goddard
1930s
Born	Marion Pauline Levy (1910-06-03)June 3, 1910 Whitestone Landing, Queens, New York, U.S.
Died	April 23, 1990(1990-04-23) (aged 79) Ronco sopra Ascona, Ticino, Switzerland
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1929–1972
Spouse	Edgar James (1927–1929) Charles Chaplin (1936–1942) Burgess Meredith (1944–1949) Erich Maria Remarque (1958–1970)

Paulette Goddard (June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990)^[1] was an American film actress. A child fashion model and a performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl, she became a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. Goddard was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in So Proudly We Hail! (1943).

Early life[link]

Paulette Goddard was born Marion Pauline Levy in Whitestone Landing, Queens, New York. She was the only child of Joseph Russell Levy, who was Jewish, and Alta Mae Goddard, who was Episcopalian and of English heritage.^[2] Her parents divorced while she was young, and she was raised by her mother. Her father virtually vanished from her life, only to resurface later in the 1930s after she became a star.^{[citation needed]} At first, their newfound relationship seemed genial and they attended film premières together, but later he sued her over a magazine article in which she purportedly claimed he abandoned her when she was young. They never reconciled. On his death, he left her one dollar in his will. She remained very close to her mother, however, as both had struggled through those early years, with her great uncle, Charles Goddard (her grandfather's brother) lending a hand.^{[citation needed]}

Charles Goddard helped his great niece find jobs as a fashion model, and with the Ziegfeld Follies as one of the heavily decorated Ziegfeld Girls from 1924 to 1928. She attended Washington Irving High School in Manhattan at the same time as future film star Claire Trevor.

Career[link]

Her stage debut was in the Ziegfeld revue No Foolin in 1926, and played a small role in Rio Rita.^[3] The next year she made her stage acting debut in The Unconquerable Male. She also changed her first name to Paulette and took her mother's maiden name (which also happened to be her favorite great uncle Charles' last name) as her own last name. She married an older, wealthy businessman, lumber tycoon Edgar James, in 1926 or 1927 and moved to North Carolina. Goddard returned to Hollywood in 1929, and she and James later divorced.^{[citation needed]}

Goddard in Dramatic School (1938).

Upon her return to Hollywood, with her mother, Goddard appeared in small roles in The Girl Habit (1931) and The Mouthpiece (1932). She signed a contract with Hal Roach Studios, and appeared in films such as The Kid from Spain and Laurel and Hardy's Pack Up Your Troubles (both 1932). In 1932, she met Charlie Chaplin. Goddard was considering investing the money from her divorce settlement in a film venture but Chaplin intervened when he discovered the deal was fraudulent, and bought out her contract from Roach. Chaplin began planning a film with Goddard that was released in 1936 as Modern Times.^[3] In the interim, Goddard appeared in a few films for Samuel Goldwyn Productions. Along with such actresses as Betty Grable, Lucille Ball, and Ann Sothern, Goddard became a "Goldwyn Girl" and was featured in films such as Roman Scandals (1933) and Kid Millions (1934). During this time she lived with Chaplin in his Beverly Hills home. Their marital status was a source of controversy and speculation. During most of their time together, both refused to comment on the matter.^[4] Chaplin maintained that they were married in China in 1936, but to private associates and family, he claimed they were never legally married, except in common law.

publicity photo 1940s

Following the success of Modern Times, Chaplin planned other projects with Goddard in mind as a co-star, but he worked slowly and Goddard worried that the public might forget about her if she did not continue to make regular film appearances. She signed a contract with David O. Selznick and appeared with Janet Gaynor in the comedy The Young in Heart (1938) before Selznick loaned her to MGM to appear in two films. The first of these, Dramatic School (1938), costarred Luise Rainer, but the film received mediocre reviews and failed to attract an audience.^[3] Her next film, The Women (1939), was a success. With an all-female cast headed by Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Rosalind Russell, Goddard played the supporting role of Miriam Aarons. Pauline Kael later commented of Goddard, "she is a stand-out. She's fun."^[5]

With Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940)

Selznick had been pleased with Goddard's recent performances, and specifically her work in The Young at Heart, and considered her for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. Initial screen tests convinced him and the director George Cukor that Goddard would require coaching to be effective in the role, but that she showed promise,^[6] and she was the first actress given a Technicolor screen test.^[7] Russell Birdwell, the head of Selznick's publicity department, had strong misgivings about Goddard. He warned Selznick of the "tremendous avalanche of criticism that will befall us and the picture should Paulette be given this part… I have never known a woman, intent on a career dependent upon her popularity with the masses, to hold and live such an insane and absurd attitude towards the press and her fellow man as does Paulette Goddard… Briefly, I think she is dynamite that will explode in our very faces if she is given the part."^[6] Selznick remained interested in Goddard and after he had been introduced to Vivien Leigh, he wrote to his wife that Leigh was a "dark horse" and that his choice had "narrowed down to Paulette, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Vivien Leigh"^[8] After a series of tests with Leigh that pleased both Selznick and Cukor, Selznick cancelled the further tests that had been scheduled for Goddard, and the part was given to Leigh.^[8] It has been suggested that Goddard lost the part because Selznick feared questions surrounding her marital status with Chaplin would result in scandal.^[4] However, Selznick was aware that Leigh and Laurence Olivier lived together as their respective spouses had refused to divorce them,^[9] and in addition to offering Leigh a contract, he engaged Olivier as the leading man in his next production Rebecca (1940).^[10] Chaplin's biographer Joyce Milton wrote that Selznick was worried about legal issues by signing her to a contract that might conflict with her preexisting contracts with the Chaplin studio.^[11]