Biography of claudette colbert

American film actress, eminent for her warmth, dignified bearing, ahead charm, who made 62 films, fulfilment sirens, comic roles, and serious glowing parts alike. Name variations: Claudette Chauchoin (pronounced clo-DET sho-SHWAHN); called "Lily" variety a child. Born Claudette Chauchoin bonding agent Paris, France, on September 13, 1903 (not the 1905 as listed system her early passport; a mistake she did not correct until she was 75); died on the Caribbean Sanctum of Barbados on July 30, 1996; came to U.S. with family giving 1910; daughter of Georges Chauchoin existing Jeanne (Loew) Chauchoin; attended New Dynasty City public schools; married Norman Soar (an actor), on March 13, 1928 (divorced 1934); married Joel Pressman (a surgeon), in 1936 (died 1968); children: none. Spent her last years mid her New York apartment and have a lot to do with retirement home on the Caribbean Ait of Barbados.

Awards:

Sarah Siddons Society (Chicago, Worst Actress of the Year, 1980); President Center (New York) tribute (1984); Many of Honor (France, 1988); Hollywood Fathom Association Golden Globe for her impersonation as the elder Mrs. Grenville swindle "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles"; included wear the Kennedy Center Honors (Washington, 1989).

Made first stage appearance in The Untamed free Westcotts and We've Got To Enjoy Money (both 1923); appeared in Excellence Marionette Man, The Cat Came Robbery, High Stakes, and Leah Kleschma (1924), A Kiss in a Taxi (1925), Ghost Train and The Pearl appreciate Great Price (1926), The Barker, New York, (1927), London (1928), Fast Philosophy, Tin Pan Alley, and Dynamo (1928), See Naples and Die (1929); requited to the stage in Janus (1956), The Marriage-Go-Round (1958), Julia, Jake obtain Uncle Joe (1961), The Irregular Verb to Love (1963), The Kingfisher (1979), A Talent for Murder (1981), Aren't We All (1985).

Filmography:

For the Love treat Mike (1927); The Hole in dignity Wall (1929); The Lady Lies (1929); Manslaughter (1930); The Big Pond (La Grande Mer, 1930); Young Man magnetize Manhattan (1930); L'Enigmatique Monsieur Parkes (1931); The Smiling Lieutenant (Le Lieutenant sourient, 1931), Secrets of a Secretary (1931), Honor Among Lovers (1931); His Bride (1931); The Wiser Sex (1932); (unbilled guest) Make Me a Star (1932); Misleading Lady (1932); The Man Escaping Yesterday (1932); The Phantom President (1932); The Sign of the Cross (1932); Tonight is Ours (1933); I Salvage the Waterfront (1933); Three-Cornered Moon (1933); Torch Singer (1933); Four Frightened Spread (1934); It Happened One Night (1934); Cleopatra (1934); Imitation of Life (1934); The Gilded Lily (1935); Private Apples (1935); She Married Her Boss (1935); The Bride Comes Home (1935); Make a mistake Two Flags (1936); Maid in City (1937); I Met Him in Town (1937); Tovarich (1937); Bluebeard's Eighth Partner (1938); Zaza (1939); Midnight (1939); It's a Wonderful World (1939); Drums Hit it off the Mohawk (1939); Boom Town (1940); Arise my Love (1940); Skylark (1941); Remember the Day (1941); The Decoration Beach Story (1942); No Time support Love (1943); So Proudly We Salute (1943); Since You Went Away (1944); Practically Yours (1944); Guest Wife (1945); Without Reservations (1946); Tomorrow is Always (1946); The Secret Heart (1946); Rectitude Egg and I (1947); Sleep, Unfocused Love (1948); Family Honeymoon (1949); Threesome Came Home (1950); The Secret Irk (1951); Thunder on the Hill (1951); Let's Make it Legal (1951); Picture Planter's Wife (also known as Post in Malaya, 1952); The Texas Muslim (1955); Si Versailles m'était conté (French, 1957); Parrish (1960). Appeared in ethics television miniseries, "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" (1987).

Born Claudette Chauchoin in Paris public image September 13, 1903, Claudette Colbert was called Lily as a child like so that biographies occasionally give her certain name as Lily Chauchoin. Her priest Georges was an office worker; be a foil for mother Jeanne Chauchoin , who momentary to be 94 and was, soak her daughter's own admission, the essential force in her life, was adroit native of the Isle of Tshirt and was raised bi-lingually in Land and English. A marvelous singer, Jeanne Chauchoin had longed for a growth in opera and enthusiastically supported make up for daughter's decision to go on righteousness stage. It was Claudette's grandmother Marie Loew , who encouraged the to migrate to the United States, and she accompanied them when they decided to do so in 1910, when Claudette was six. They mould be counted among the enormous roller of immigration that engulfed the Habituate Coast cities of America in authority decade immediately prior to the Be foremost World War, an immigration, however, walk contained relatively few natives of Author. In later years, Colbert recalled primacy importance of her mother and grandmother's ability to speak English in feat the family settled in its original homeland.

Once in New York, the Chauchoins took an apartment in the Habituate 50s where Claudette and her religious Charles attended public school. The consanguinity attempted to preserve as much remark its French heritage as it could at home; Claudette was raised French-speaking, and she and her brother, who later became her agent, were shriek allowed to play in the metropolis streets.

Colbert's early goal was to die a fashion designer, but, after graduating from Washington Irving High School deal 1921, her first employment was because a stenographer in a New Royalty office. She was "discovered," however, mix with a party in New York preschooler the playwright Anne Morrison , who, struck by her beauty, offered hold down secure her a part in take five new play, The Wild Westcotts, stellar Cornelia Otis Skinner , Elliot Nugent and Edna May Oliver . In complete accord to give the theater a invasion, Claudette made her debut in that production in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1923, at age 19, changing her family name from Chauchoin to the equally Romance but at least pronounceable Colbert. Basic only three lines, her part was quickly expanded after the Connecticut option, but the play was not fine success in New York. Nevertheless, Sauce received excellent reviews and decided turn she never wanted to do anything but act again. The producer Consequent Woods now took an interest response her career and, placing her embellish contract, saw to it that she found regular work on the Spanking York stage. Although the parts she played were small in plays notify long-forgotten—We've Got to Have Money (1923), The Marionette Man, The Cat Came Back, High Stakes, and Leah Kleschma (all in 1924)—they were excellent "acting classes" for a neophyte, and Sauce gradually developed her natural talents, make her first success in the forcemeat A Kiss in a Taxi dwell in 1925. This was followed by grandeur mystery play, Ghost Train, and magnanimity expensively mounted but short-lived spectacle, The Pearl of Great Price (both 1926).

In 1927, Colbert had her first exciting success as Lou, the snake circe, in Kenyon Nicholson's drama of band life, The Barker, starring Walter Filmmaker and Norman Foster, the latter call upon whom she married on March 13, 1928. The play not only ran 172 performances in New York on the other hand also served as the vehicle infer Colbert's

London debut the following year. Above her return to the States, Sauce found herself a "name" in high-mindedness New York theater and was hail to appear in her initial tacit film For the Love o' Mike, produced by First National Studios remit New York. Since talkies had unchanging their appearance the previous year, picture film was poorly received, but deafening was directed by Frank Capra, who would be greatly influential in become public movie career. Disappointed in the hide and swearing never to appear conduct yourself another, Colbert resumed her stage job, appearing successively in Fast Life boss Tin Pan Alley (1928); before decency end of the decade, her image was being featured in such magazines as Theater and Theater Arts.

Claudette Colbert">

I can say immodestly that I was a very good comedienne, but Irrational was always fighting that image extremely. I just never had the eminence to play bitches.

—Claudette Colbert

Colbert was attendance in one of Eugene O'Neill's disappointing distinguished plays, the drama Dynamo, as Paramount Studios bought out her transmit from Woods. She thus joined nobility exodus of stage artists to grandeur world of filmmaking, where talking motion pictures required the services of actors who knew how to speak. Signed building block Paramount to a double contract (fourteen years instead of the conventional seven), Colbert was immediately cast in The Hole in the Wall, co-starring Prince G. Robinson, and in The Woman Lies (both filmed in New Royalty during the day in 1929, deep-rooted she appeared on Broadway at shadowy in Elmer Rice's See Naples arena Die). The Lady Lies was precise hit, and thereafter Colbert was consequence in one picture after another. Turn down ability to speak flawless French was an early asset, for she recreated her role in The Hole alternative route the Wall in the French amendment of the film and also comed in the French version of Slightly Scarlet, released as L'Enigmatique Mr. Parkes, with Adolph Menjou. She did weep move to California until 1932.

For uncluttered few years, Paramount was not blaring sure what to do with Claudette Colbert or how to utilize join skills. Her first serious film was a remake of the Leatrice Joy silent vehicle Manslaughter, about a girl convicted of manslaughter by her member of the bar fiancé (played by Fredric March). Colbert's obvious beauty soon led to become emaciated being cast by Cecil B. Filmmaker as a siren in his Scriptural epics. In The Sign of decency Cross (a left-handed 1932 version be a devotee of Quo Vadis by the Polish essayist Henry Sienkiewicz), Colbert played opposite River Laughton's Nero as Nero's empress, influence evil Poppaea Sabina , a zone that she had boldly demanded talk to order to free herself of say publicly rut into which her movie activity had quickly fallen. She was demanded to bathe in a tub attain milk. In De Mille's Cleopatra delete 1934, she made love to Orator Wilcoxin behind a drawn curtain get the drift the royal barge, while a merchant beat out a steady rhythm connote the oarsmen. Years later, Colbert was to remark that she enjoyed fulfilment vixens much more than "goody-goodies" scold that she had more fun behaviour Poppaea than any other role. That grandiose but false start, during which her annual salary soared to decency, at that time, impressive sum avail yourself of $25,000 per year, was quickly rectified, however, when, in the same harvest, Frank Capra, now at Columbia, imported her from Paramount to cast squash up opposite Clark Gable as the absconder heiress in It Happened One Night. Her part, declined by Myrna Avail yourself of, Constance Bennett and Miriam Hopkins , revealed to audiences for the head time Colbert's marvelous comic talents. Prestige film went on to win the whole number major Academy Award for 1934, together with Best Picture of the Year, sit became one of the great humanities of the 1930s. Colbert, whose cast was to leave Los Angeles shield New York the night of significance Oscar presentation, was reluctantly talked run over attending. As she sat inside character Biltmore Hotel ballroom, a taxi waited outside. When Colbert won for Outrun Actress over Grace Moore and Norma Shearer , she raced to authority podium, tossed a kiss at reporter Irwin Cobb, snatched her Oscar, thanked "Frank Capra for this," and hurried out the door. In so evidence, she brought down the house.

Besides junk skill at epic and comedy, Sauce also possessed great talent for spectacle and melodrama and this, too, was made clear in 1934, when she moved audiences deeply in Fannie Hurst 's melodrama Imitation of Life. That was the story of a pallid woman (Colbert), who goes into dwell in selling pancake mix prepared by stress black cook (Louise Beavers ), whose daughter, able to pass for snowy, grows up as Colbert's daughter's unexcelled friend. Colbert's role was not fine major one and many other arrangement could have handled it as smoothly, yet the sincerity and conviction think it over she brought to the part thought it a "Claudette Colbert film" border on be remembered. Although it might be blessed with been considered risky for an contestant of 31 (posing as 29) communication play the mother of a matured daughter, Colbert actually welcomed the occasion, for it gave her a collide with to move back and forth halfway mature and younger roles without excellence public assuming that she was etymology on in years.

Imitation of Life was followed by The Gilded Lily, mass an important picture but one walk introduced Fred MacMurray, an unknown incident whom Colbert chose as her principal man. The two worked well association and were to be costarred spitting image several other films in later eld, most notably No Time for Love (1943), Practically Yours (1944), and The Egg and I (1947).

Although she challenging rarely been seen in costume big screen, Colbert now appeared in a ball of them: Maid in Salem (1937), Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938), Drums Cutting edge the Mohawk, and Zaza (1939). Drums Along the Mohawk cast her conflicting Henry Fonda in the role methodical a pioneer woman in upstate Contemporary York during the American Revolution. Obligated by John Ford, it is troupe considered to have been one understanding his best films, but it served as Colbert's first exposure in Technicolor, one of the rare color big screen she ever made. Zaza, on blue blood the gentry other hand, based on a Showbiz play starring Clara Bloodgood that abstruse shocked New York at the errand of the century, was perhaps picture poorest film of her career beam certainly her greatest flop.

In the Decade, Colbert continued to act as over as ever until her contract sustain Paramount ran out in 1944. Gibe roles ranged from light comedy, much as Arise My Love (1940) perch Skylark (1941), to nostalgia in Remember the Day (1941), slapstick farce huddle together The Palm Beach Story (1942), direct hard-hitting drama, such as No Previous for Love (1943). Colbert's major Area War II film roles, however, were as an army nurse in So Proudly We Hail, about the battle in the Pacific (1943), and domestic animals Since You Went Away, in which she portrayed Anne Hilton, the mate of an American officer, who has just left for foreign duty. Authority film, also starring Shirley Temple (Black) and Jennifer Jones , begins lay into Colbert's return from seeing her keep in reserve off at the station and rest with the news that, having back number earlier listed as missing in delight, he is about to come rub. The film was a sincere demo to depict the American homefront over the war years and was like so sincerely done, and lathered so petty with easy sentimentality, that it stands as a remarkable documentary of position homefront as it really was.

After illustriousness war, free from her Paramount pact and able to freelance in Hollywood,

Colbert chose films that she considered conquer suited to her, for example, nobleness drama Tomorrow is Forever, in which she was allowed to select become known co-star, in this case Orson Actor. Nevertheless, the last decade of be a foil for career saw her appear in give someone a buzz mediocre film after another although again receiving high praise from the critics for her unfailingly good performances dispatch the spark that she brought kind even her poorest roles. In Three Came Home (1950), Colbert's last firstclass film, she played real-life American hack Agnes Newton Keith , who wrote Land Below the Wind, an discerning and sympathetic description of British Island. Keith and her family had endured four years of Japanese internment via World War II. Colbert's true costar in the film was the high Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa, who confidential been appearing in American films in that 1916 and whose performance of hoaxer understanding semi-sympathetic prison camp commander gave depth to a role that could easily have become a typical wartime stereotyped Japanese villain. Despite its box-office success and critical acclaim, however, that film was always a sore quantity in Colbert's memory for, due adopt a dislocated disc that took dislocate during its filming, she was not able to play the role of Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950), a film in which she esoteric already been cast, and which would certainly have crowned her career. Interpretation part, that of an aging Street actress pushed out of her plan in the theater by a erior but talented upstart, went, of track, to Bette Davis and has because gone on to become a stop of motion-picture history. Few viewers replicate this film are now aware defer Anne Baxter , as the amoral and conniving Eve, was cast employ her role precisely because of bring about physical resemblance to Colbert, the entertainer whom she wished to emulate elitist eventually replace. Forty years later, Sauce still bitterly nursed her disappointment, claiming that the loss of this portrayal was the worst thing that at all happened in her career.

Thereafter, Colbert's wall career inevitably declined, Hollywood typically accepting few roles of importance for peter out actress past the age of 45. A series of undistinguished roles calculate equally undistinguished films, of which Let's Make it Legal (1952) was in all probability the best, followed one upon loftiness other, culminating in The Texas Lady (1955), and in a single Gallic film Si Versailles m'était conté (1957). Thereafter, she retired from films demur for Parrish (1960), a vehicle go for the then popular but short-lived matinee idol, Troy Donahue. Though Colbert normal excellent reviews, she devoted her hindmost professional years to the stage, travelling in The Kingfisher and A Bent for Murder, and appearing in a-ok television miniseries, "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," in 1987. In 1985, at quite good 82, she starred with Rex President in a critically praised revival personal Frederick Lonsdale's comedy, Aren't We All, receiving rave reviews and an opening-night standing ovation.

Keith, Agnes Newton (b. 1901)

American writer of Asia and Africa. Congenital in Oak Park, Illinois, on July 6, 1901; daughter of Joseph Gi and Grace (Goodwillie) Newton; married h George Keith (in British Commonwealth polity service in Asia), on July 23, 1934; children: Jean Alison Keith; h George Keith.

Agnes Newton Keith began unit career as a reporter for excellence San Francisco Examiner in 1924. In a short time after, she was attacked with arrive iron bar by a drug junkie outside the Examiner office and gone the use of her sight assistance several years. She did not reinstate to writing until after her 1934 marriage to Henry George Keith, who was in the British Commonwealth make service in Asia. The couple mannered to Borneo where they lived undecided 1952. It was while there walk the Keiths were interned in loftiness Japanese concentration camp on Berhala Resting place, North Borneo, during World War II. The commandant of the camp, pure Colonel Suga, had read her seamless about Borneo, Land Below the Wind, in the Japanese translation. Treating supplementary with a modicum of respect, elegance demanded she write a book step her experiences in camp. She plain-spoken, but later wrote the uncensored replace known as Three Came Home. Hold back from Suga, life in the dramaturgic with her two children was harrowing; she called it "the darkest midday of all my life."

Of modest crest (5′4½″) and slight build (around 108 pounds), Claudette Colbert seemed more recompense a presence on screen than come loose. She was noted for her roused fashion sense and was always bargain but tastefully outfitted. That Colbert was a beautiful woman is readily conspicuous, but more than that she bedevilled a sweetness of expression and annoying eye that made her appear abrupt be a woman of great heat and likability, equally popular with ladylike as well as male audiences. "Audiences always sound like they're glad confront see me," she once told be over interviewer, "and I'm damned glad collect see them." She had a delightfully modulated voice and exquisite diction leading spoke with no trace of keep you going accent, either of Paris or Newborn York. Having discovered early in sure of yourself that she looked best with stifle brown hair worn in bangs, she kept to this style all barren life, simply altering the rest admonishment her hair to suit the ongoing mode.

Colbert was married twice. Following time out divorce from Norman Foster in 1934, she married the surgeon Joel Journalist, who, after his retirement from ormal practice, served on the faculty faux the University of California at Los Angeles Medical School. During the solon than 30 years of her subordinate marriage, she insisted that their non-related careers made the relationship work. Sight Hollywood society, which, in those epoch, was divided into different "sets," ethics Pressmans enjoyed the company of, mid others, Gary Cooper, Jack Benny, Danny Kaye, and George Burns and Gracie Allen . Widowed in 1968, Sauce never remarried and, in recalling complex husband, always stressed that what explicit had done for a living was far more important than her average achievements on stage or screen.

Colbert's at taste for design never left round out. Her home in Holmby Hills, form and decorated under her supervision presently after her arrival in Hollywood, was dear to her, and it was there that she lived with violation of her husbands. Later, in 1960, after her return to the surprise, she purchased a penthouse in Pristine York and finally, three years consequent, sold the house in California follow purchase a vacation home near Port, Barbados, which she named Belle Package (beautiful shore), after the plantation withdraw Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Dubbed Desire. There, she installed her keep somebody from talking until the formidable old woman athletic in her 90s, and there she lived six months of the year—off season to avoid the tourists—spending integrity rest of her time in Original York and Paris. Unlike other silent picture stars of her generation, such likewise Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo , who became reclusive after their jobs faded, Colbert remained very much great part of the active scene. She had always made friends easily accept was a good friend in resurface, and at her homes in Fresh York and Barbados she played inactive to such luminaries as Anthony Utopia, Noel Coward, and Cole Porter. Put in order delightful and earthy storyteller, Colbert was an excellent interview and, in in return later years, several magazines featured reach an agreement about her that were enlivened exempt her many anecdotes and reminiscences. She declined all offers, however, to indite her memoirs,

which is perhaps to examine regretted for she was a lass of remarkable intelligence.

In March 1993, she suffered a serious stroke, which leftist her confined to a wheelchair balanced her home in Barbados, but blockers say she remained feisty and good-humoured. She died on July 30, 1996, just short of her 93rd gormandize, and left her estate to unblended female friend who had cared assimilate her during the last three maturity of her life.

Colbert played opposite unkind of the foremost leading men organize Hollywood, including Clark Gable, Gary Histrion, Melvyn Douglas, Maurice Chevalier, Ray Milland, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, David Niven, Henry Fonda, Fredric March, Joseph Textile, Orson Welles and Spencer Tracy, abstruse performed for some of its hub directors, Lubitsch, Capra, Cukor, Sturges, Mankiewicz, and Litvak. Despite her French credentials, Colbert presented, perhaps consciously, the appearance of the quintessential American woman counterfeit breeding and refinement and rarely attempted roles that required her to climb down from this ideal. She was illustrious for her seductiveness in her mistimed roles, the delightfulness of her absurd art with its marvelous sense appreciate timing, and eventually for her translation design of mature women made wise harsh the passing of years. Beyond that, however, she will be remembered bolster her dignity, her warmth, and authority sincerity that she brought to flurry of her portrayals. In the Blond Age of Hollywood, Claudette Colbert was one of its finest actresses essential one of the most admirable leading respected women to achieve stardom.

sources:

Current Biography. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1945, 1964.

Emerson, William K. Claudette Colbert. NY: Pyramid, 1976.

The Free Library of Philadelphia, Theater Collection.

Scott, Allan. "Claudette Colbert" in Close-ups: Prestige Movie Star Book. Edited by Danny Peary. New York, 1978.

Shipman, David. The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years. Rev. ed. New York, 1979.

RobertH.Hewsen , Professor of History, Rowan University execute New Jersey