ZaSu Pitts (; January 3, 1894– June 7, 1963) was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, although later, her career digressed to comedy sound films. She overcame her looks and voice, which had served her in silent films to play dramatic roles, using them to craft her persona in talkie comedies.
Early life
ZaSu Pitts was born in
Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nellie (Shay) Pitts; she was the third of four children. Her father, who had lost a leg while serving in the 76th New York Infantry Regiment in the
Civil War, had settled the family in
Kansas by the time ZaSu was born.
The names of her mother's sisters Eliza and Susan became the basis for ZaSu's unique first name, which has been (incorrectly) spelled as Zazu Pitts or Zasu Pitts in many film credits and articles. Though the name is commonly mispronounced or , or , in her 1963 book Candy Hits (p. 15), Pitts herself gives the correct pronunciation as "Say Zoo" (), recounting that Mary Pickford predicted , "[M]any will mispronounce it", and adding, "How right [she] was...."
In 1903, when she was nine years old, the family moved to Santa Cruz, California, seeking a warmer climate and better job opportunities. Her childhood home at 208 Lincoln Street still stands. She attended Santa Cruz High School, where she participated in school theatricals.
Career
Pitts made her stage debut in 1915 and was discovered two years later for films by pioneer screenwriter
Frances Marion. Pitts made her debut in the
silent film,
The Little Princess (1917), starring
Mary Pickford. Pitts became a leading lady in
Erich von Stroheim's masterpiece,
Greed (1924); based on this performance, von Stroheim labeled Pitts "the greatest dramatic actress". Von Stroheim also featured her in his films
Sins of the Fathers (1928),
The Wedding March (1928),
War Nurse (1930) and
Walking Down Broadway, which was re-edited by
Alfred L. Werker and released as
Hello, Sister! (1933). She earned praise in all those films.
Pitts grew in popularity following a series of Universal one-reeler comedies and earned her first feature-length lead in King Vidor's Better Times (1919). The following year she met and married actor Tom Gallery. The couple paired in several films, including Bright Eyes (1921), Heart of Twenty (1920), Patsy (1921) and A Daughter of Luxury (1922). Their daughter, Ann, was born in 1922.
In 1924, the actress, now a reputable comedy farceuse, was given the greatest tragic role of her career in Erich von Stroheim's epic classic, Greed (1924), a nine-hour-plus picture, edited to under two hours. The surprise casting initially shocked Hollywood, but showed that Pitts could draw tears with her doleful demeanor as well as laughs. The movie has gained respect over time, having failed initially at the box office due to its extensive cutting.
Pitts enjoyed her greatest fame in the 1930s, often starring in B movies and comedy shorts, teamed with Thelma Todd. She also played secondary parts in many films. Her stock persona (a fretful, flustered, worrisome spinster) made her instantly recognizable and was often imitated in cartoons and other films. She starred in a number of Hal Roach shorts and features, and co-starred in a series of feature-length comedies with Slim Summerville.
Switching between comedy shorts and features, by the advent of sound, she was relegated to comedy roles. A bitter disappointment was when she was replaced in the classic war drama All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) by Beryl Mercer after her initial appearance in previews drew unintentional laughs, despite the intensity of her acting. She had viewers rolling in the aisles in The Dummy (1929), Finn and Hattie (1931), The Guardsman (1931), Blondie of the Follies (1932), Sing and Like It (1934) and Ruggles of Red Gap (1935).
In the 1940s, she also found work in vaudeville and on radio, trading quivery banter with Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, and Rudy Vallee, among others. She appeared several times on the earliest Fibber McGee and Molly show, playing a dizzy dame constantly looking for a husband. Her brief stint in the Hildegarde Withers mystery series, replacing Edna May Oliver, was not successful, however.
In 1944 Pitts tackled Broadway, making her debut in the mystery, Ramshackle Inn. The play, written expressly for her, fared well, and she took the show on the road in later years. Post-war films continued to give Pitts the chance to play comic snoops and flighty relatives in such fare as Life with Father (1947), but in the 1950s she started focusing on TV.
This culminated in her best known series role, playing second banana to Gale Storm on The Gale Storm Show () (also known as Oh, Susannah), as Elvira Nugent ("Nugie"), the shipboard beautician. Her last role was as a switchboard operator in the Stanley Kramer comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and, one day past six months after the filming of the last scene, she became that movie's second cast member to die.
Personal life
Marriages
Tom Gallery (July 23, 1920 – May 2, 1933; divorced); two children: Ann Gallery (natural) and Don Gallery (born Marvin Carville La Marr), whom they adopted and renamed after the 1926 drug-related death of his mother and Pitts' good friend, silent film actress Barbara La Marr.
John E. Woodall (October 8, 1933 – June 7, 1963) (her death).
Death
Declining health dominated Pitts' later years, particularly after she was diagnosed with
cancer in the mid-1950s. However, she continued to work until the very end – making brief appearances in
The Thrill of It All (1963) with
Doris Day and
James Garner, besides
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
She died June 7, 1963, aged 69, in Hollywood, California and was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.
Legacy
ZaSu Pitts was an excellent cook and collector of candy recipes, which culminated in a cookbook titled Candy Hits by ZaSu Pitts, published posthumously in 1963.
Mae Questel caricatured Pitts's voice and "oh, dear" mannerisms for the character Olive Oyl for the Fleischer Studios animated cartoon version of Popeye the Sailor.
ZaSu Pitts has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.Selected filmography
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ Film
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| 1917
|
| Becky
|
|-
| 1918
|
How Could You Jean?
| Oscar's Sweetheart
|
|-
| 1918
|
|
|
|-
| 1919
|
Better Times
| Nancy Scroggs
|
|-
| 1919
|
| Jennie Jones, The Jazz Kid
|
|-
| 1919
|
Poor Relations
| Daisy Perkins
|
|-
| 1920
|
Seeing It Through
| Betty Lawrence
|
|-
| 1921
|
Patsy
| Patsy
|
|-
| 1922
|
Youth to Youth
| Emily
|
|-
| 1923
|
Souls for Sale
| Herself
| Cameo role
|-
| 1923
|
Three Wise Fools
| Mickey
|
|-
| 1923
|
Hollywood
| Herself
| Cameo role
|-
| 1924
|
Daughters of Today
| Lorena
|
|-
| 1924
|
Triumph
| A Factory Girl
|
|-
| 1924
|
Changing Husbands
| Delia
|
|-
| 1924
|
Greed
| Trina
|
|-
| 1925
|
| Polly Jordan
|
|-
| 1925
|
Pretty Ladies
| Maggie Keenan
|
|-
| 1925
|
| Nancy
|
|-
| 1926
|
Monte Carlo
| Hope Durant
|
|-
| 1926
|
Sunny Side Up
| Evelyn
|
|-
| 1927
|
Casey at the Bat
| Camille
|
|-
| 1928
|
| Cecelia Schweisser
|
|-
| 1929
|
Paris
| Harriet
|
|-
| 1929
|
| Telephone Girl
|
|-
| 1929
|
This Thing Called Love
| Clara Bertrand
|
|-
| 1930
|
No, No, Nanette
| Pauline Hastings
|
|-
| 1930
|
| Ethel
|
|-
| 1930
|
Monte Carlo
| Bertha
|
|-
| 1931
|
| Minnie
|
|-
| 1931
|
Seed
| Jennie
|
|-
| 1931
|
Penrod and Sam
| Mrs. Bassett
| Alternative title:
The Adventures of Penrod and Sam
|-
| 1931
|
| Liesl, the Maid
|
|-
| 1931
|
On the Loose
| Zasu
| Short subject
|-
| 1932
|
Broken Lullaby
| Anna, Holderlin's Maid
|
|-
| 1932
|
Shopworn
| Aunt Dot
|
|-
| 1932
|
Destry Rides Again
| Temperance Worker
| Alternative title:
Justice Rides Again
|-
| 1932
|
Westward Passage
| Mrs. Truesdale
|
|-
| 1932
|
Back Street
| Mrs. Dole
|
|-
| 1932
|
Blondie of the Follies
| Gertie
|
|-
| 1932
|
| Nora Rafferty
|
|-
| 1933
|
They Just Had to Get Married
| Molly Hull
|
|-
| 1933
|
Hello, Sister!
| Millie
|
|-
| 1933
|
Meet the Baron
| Zasu
|
|-
| 1933
|
Mr. Skitch
| Maddie Skitch
|-
| 1934
|
Dames
| Matilda Ounce Hemingway
|
|-
| 1934
|
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
| Miss Hazy
|
|-
| 1934
|
| Mirabelle
|
|-
| 1935
|
Ruggles of Red Gap
| Prunella Judson
|
|-
| 1936
|
Thirteen Hours by Air
| Miss Harkins
|
|-
| 1937
|
Forty Naughty Girls
| Hildegarde Withers
|
|-
| 1939
|
| Dulcey Lee
|
|-
| 1939
|
Eternally Yours
| Mrs. Bingham
|
|-
| 1940
|
It All Came True
| Miss Flint
|
|-
| 1940
|
No, No Nanette
| Pauline Hastings
|
|-
| 1941
|
Niagara Falls
| Emmy Sawyer
|
|-
| 1942
|
| Geraldine
|
|-
| 1942
|
So's Your Aunt Emma
| Aunt Emma
| Alternative title:
Meet the Mob
|-
| 1943
|
Let's Face It!
| Cornelia Figeson
|
|-
| 1946
|
Breakfast in Hollywood
| Elvira Spriggens
|
|-
| 1947
|
Life with Father
| Cousin Cora Cartwright
|
|-
| 1950
|
Francis
| Nurse Valerie Humpert
|
|-
| 1952
|
Denver and Rio Grande
| Jane Dwyer
|
|-
| 1954
|
Francis Joins the WACS
| Lt. Valerie Humpert
|
|-
| 1957
|
This Could Be the Night
| Mrs. Katie Shea
|
|-
| 1961
|
| Aunt Theodora
|
|-
| 1963
|
| Olivia
|
|-
| 1963
|
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
| Gertie–Switchboard Operator
|
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ Television
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| 1954
|
| Miss Preen
| Episode: "The Man Who Came to Dinner"
|-
| 1956
|
| Miss Appleton
| Episode: "Mr. Belvedere"
|-
| 1956–
1960
|
| Elvira Nugent
| 91 episodes
|-
| 1957
| Private Secretary
| Aunt Martha
| Episode: "Not Quite Paradise"
|-
| 1960
|
| Loretta Kimball
| Episode: "Dimples"
|-
| 1961
| Guestward, Ho!
|
| Episode: "Lonesome's Gal"
|-
| 1961
| Perry Mason
| Daphne Whilom
| Episode: "The Case of the Absent Artist"
|-
| 1963
| Burke's Law
| Mrs. Bowie
| Episode: "Who Killed Holly Howard?"
|}
See also
* ZaSu Pitts Memorial Orchestra
Pitts and Todd
Notes
External links
Photographs and litarature
Category:Actors from California
Category:Actors from Kansas
Category:American film actors
Category:American silent film actors
Category:American stage actors
Category:American television actors
Category:American voice actors
Category:Cancer deaths in California
Category:Deaths from cancer
Category:People from Labette County, Kansas
Category:People from Santa Cruz, California
Category:Vaudeville performers
Category:1894 births
Category:1963 deaths
Category:Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery
Category:American Roman Catholics
