Claudette Colbert (September 13, 1903 - July 30, 1996) was an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning American actress of film, theater and television.
Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, and with the advent of talking pictures progressed to film. She joined Paramount Pictures, and became noted for her versatility. She was acclaimed for her performances in several screwball comedies as well as dramatic roles and she received Academy Award nominations in both film genres.
From the mid 1930s until the late 1940s, she was one of the most successful and highly paid performers in American cinema. During the 1950s she continued to act in films and appeared in a number of television productions but concentrated mainly on her work in theater, remaining active until the late 1980s. In her later years, she retired to her home in Barbados, where she died at the age of 92, following a series of small strokes.
She was born Lily Claudette Chauchoin in Paris, France to Georges Claude Chauchoin (1867-1925), a banker and diplomat, and his wife, the former Jeanne Loew (d. 1970). Her family emigrated to the United States when she was three years old and settled in New York City three years later, when her father encountered financial setbacks. Colbert was made a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Colbert attended New York City public schools. She had one brother, Charles, who used the surname Wendling and went on to become his sister's agent. Her mother and grandmother were feuding. Claudette's favorite was her grandmother, Marie, who also lived with the family. Her very first acting part was in As You Like It.
Colbert studied at Washington Irving High School, where her speech teacher, Alice Rossetter helped her overcome a slight lisp. Rossetter encouraged her to audition for a play she had written, and Colbert made stage debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in The Widow's Veil, at the age of fifteen.
She then attended the Art Students League of New York and worked as a stenographer, a salesclerk in womens' clothing, and a tutor in order to pay her expenses. She intended to become a fashion designer but after she attended a party with the playwright Anne Morrison she was offered a three-line role in Morrison's new play. She appeared on the Broadway stage in a small role in The Wild Westcotts (1923). That ended her art aspirations, and Colbert embarked on a stage career in 1925. She had used the name Claudette instead of Lily in high school, and for her stage name she added her paternal grandmother's maiden name, Colbert.
About the mid 1920s, she signed five-year contract with the producer Al Woods. She 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). Dynamo (1929) and See Naples and Die (1929) were unsuccessful.
In 1927, Colbert accepted an offer by First National to make her first film. After the Great Depression led to the closure of many theaters, Colbert made her first motion picture appearance in For the Love of Mike (1927), her only silent film shot on location in New York, New York facilities, and now believed to be a lost film. It was a box-office failure. Theatrical roles was an extreme scarcity. In 1928 Colbert signed a film contract with Paramount which enabled her to continue her stage career. Her screen career started in earnest early in 1929, after the arrival of sound. Her first talkie and first hit film was The Hole in the Wall (1929), co-starring another newcomer, Edward G. Robinson, and The Lady Lies (1929) was also successful.
She co-starred with Fredric March in Manslaughter (1930), and received positive reviews for her performance. The New York Times wrote, "It cannot be denied that Claudette Colbert – given an even chance – is capable of excellent acting." She would make a total of four films with March, including Dorothy Arzner's Honor Among Lovers (1931), which fared well at the box-office. 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. By 1932 she had appeared in some seventeen films, playing diverse roles in approximately four films per year.
Colbert's career prospects were enhanced when Cecil B. DeMille cast her as the Roman empress Poppaea in his historical epic and Jesse L. Lasky's last great work, The Sign of the Cross (1932). In one of the scenes, she bathes in a marble pool filled with asses' milk. Claudette's milk bath scene took a week to film. Director DeMille kept trying to see her nude when getting out of the bath but was disappointed by Colbert's assistants covering her with towels as she got out. Later the same year she played in The Phantom President (1932). Other successes of this period included Tonight Is Ours (1933) and Torch Singer (1933), with Ricardo Cortez. In 1933 Claudette renegotiated contract with Paramount; allowed to appear in films at other studios.
In 1934, Colbert appeared in four films, including two films for Cecil B. DeMille. Four Frightened People was an adventure drama that failed to find a substantial audience, however Cleopatra, opposite Warren William, and in which she played the title role, was a box office success. DeMille perceived Colbert as a femme fatale, and each of her three films with him included partial nudity, however Colbert did not wish to be portrayed as a siren and thereafter refused such roles.
Colbert was reluctant to appear in the Frank Capra romantic comedy, It Happened One Night (1934), opposite Clark Gable. Filming began in a tense atmosphere; Colbert agreed that the script was below standard, but soon found that the script was no worse than those of many of her earlier films. She however continued to show her displeasure on the set.
Capra recalled Colbert's dissatisfaction with the part, commenting, "Colbert fretted, pouted and argued about her part... she was a tartar, but a cute one"[10]
Upon completion of the film, commenting later in her life, "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".[11]
Colbert then starred in Imitation of Life (1934). Of the four films Colbert made in 1934, three of them – Cleopatra, Imitation of Life and It Happened One Night were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture, with the last winning the award.
Colbert's versatility was noted, as she was considered to have given effective performances in very diverse roles and the acclaim she received helped establish the most successful phase of Colbert's career. 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 that had generated the most revenue in their theaters over the previous year.[12]
She spent the rest of the 1930s alternating between romantic comedies and dramas: The Bride Comes Home (1935); She Married Her Boss (1935), with Melvyn Douglas; Under Two Flags (1936), with Ronald Colman; the costume drama, Maid of Salem (1937); Anatole Litvak's Tovarich (1937); George Cukor's Zaza (1939), with Herbert Marshall; Midnight (1939, one of her best); It's a Wonderful World (1939), with James Stewart; and John Ford's Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), with Henry Fonda.
In 1938 she was reported to be the highest paid performer in Hollywood with a salary of $426,924.[13] Ernst Lubitsch's comedy Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938), opposite Gary Cooper, her former co-star in His Woman (1931), was another of her successes during these years.
During the 1930s, she distrusted the new technicolor film process, and feared that she would not photograph well in color. Although she appeared in first color film, Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), she preferred to be photographed in black-and-white.[14]
A rollicking Preston Sturges' screwball comedy The Palm Beach Story (1942, Some say this film is Colbert at her comic best), opposite Joel McCrea and Academy Award nominated (for Best Picture) Since You Went Away (1944), opposite Jennifer Jones were among her notable films from this period.
Other films of this period include Boom Town (1940), the actress' favorite film Arise, My Love (1940), with Ray Milland, Remember the Day (1941), No Time for Love (1943), Guest Wife (1945), Tomorrow Is Forever (1946), with Orson Wells, Without Reservations (1946), directed by Mervyn LeRoy and co-starring John Wayne, the psychological drama The Secret Heart (1946), with Walter Pidgeon, the thriller Sleep, My Love (1948), Three Came Home (1950), and last screen romantic comedy Let's Make It Legal (1951). Colbert had to do some clever footwork to keep up with one of her most effective screen partners, Don Ameche. Claudette managed to escape pigeonholing in Hollywood by taking on a variety of parts in films.
In addition, Colbert worked with the top directors in the industry: John M. Stahl, Wesley Ruggles, Gregory La Cava, Frank Lloyd, Mitchell Leisen, Woody Van Dyke, Henry King, Sam Wood and Douglas Sirk.
During World War 2, Colbert continued to make light comedies (No Time for Love and Guest Wife for example) but also starred in patriotic exercises such as So Proudly We Hail! and Since You Went Away.
In 1945 she left Paramount Pictures after having spent most of her starring career there; her last film under contract was Practically Yours (1944).[15]
Claudette and Fred MacMurray would do seven films together over thirteen years, including Universal's big hit money maker was The Egg and I (1947). The film was the twelfth most profitable American film of the 1940s, and one of the most significant commercial successes of Colbert's career.[16] On the basis of this success, Colbert made the "Quigley Poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars" for the last time, after being absent since 1936.[17]
Several of her late 1940s films did well enough at the boxoffice to sustain her career, Colbert's film career gradually declined in quality, activity and scope. Her films became less interesting in the early 1950s, and her starring career petered out.[18]
In Since You Went Away, Colbert played a middle aged woman, a mother of two teenaged daughters, trying to keep her family together while her husband was away fighting in World War II. The film marked the first time she played a more mature character; producer David O. Selznick rightly predicted that Colbert would feel threatened by the idea of playing an older character. Selznick had been impressed by Colbert's performance in So Proudly We Hail! (1943) as well as her box-office clout, commenting that "even light little comedies with her have never done under a million and a half." He enlisted the aid of Hedda Hopper in convincing Colbert to accept the part. Hopper later recalled asking her, "You don't expect to be an ingenue all your life, do you?" Claudette did not eschew mother roles in such films as the moving if overly idealized Mrs. Miniver in America saga. In addition, Colbert was assured that the film was an important production, and that "Selznick only makes good films".[19]
Director John Cromwell later noted that Colbert was "level headed, very professional and with no temperament."
Released in June 1944, the film became a substantial success and grossed almost 5 million dollars 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 Mr. (Joseph) Cotten – with flashes of acting that are warmer and more mature."[20]
From 1935 to 1954, she starred in numerous programs of CBS Network's Lux Radio Theater, one of the popular dramatic radio shows at the time.
Claudette was the subject of a magazine advertisement for Coca Cola (1933), Lucky Strike cigarettes (1938) and Chesterfield cigarettes (1949). She also appeared in Maxwell House Coffee TV commercials and billboard advertisements in 1963.
Claudette sang in a number of her movies, including: The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), Torch Singer (1933), Under Two Flags (1936), Tovarich (1937), Boom Town (1940), Arise, My Love (1940), Since You Went Away (1944).
Her salary was She Married Her Boss (1935): $50,000, The Bride Comes Home (1935): $150,000, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938): $150,000, Since You Went Away (1944): $265,000.
Colbert remained a top money-making star until her last big hit, The Egg and I (1947), after which she lost some footing, partly because of producers' unwillingness to meet her demands that (under doctor's orders) she could only film a short time each day (her doctor was her husband). By the 1950s, her career had begun to wind down.
From 1952 to 1954, she worked in Europe in fewer films, for example, Royal Affairs in Versailles, directed by Sacha Guitry. She wanted new challenges and was interested in seeing how foreign artists and technicians made films. In 1951 Claudette made TV debut on The Jack Benny Program. In 1954 Claudette made pact with CBS to star in five teleplays after successful appearance in The Royal Family. From 1954 to 1960, she appeared in a number of programs in the infant medium of television, such as Blithe Spirit (1956). In 1959 Last major acting role on TV for 25 years, in The Bells of St. Mary's. She came back to the stage in earnest in 1958. She'd stopped making motion pictures by the middle of that decade. Her last starring film was the western Texas Lady (1955), and one-shot return to film: her last major appearance was as Troy Donahue's mother in 1961's soap opera, Parrish.
Her heroines were two older actresses Ina Claire and Lynn Fontanne. In 1969 she expressed her intention to write a book entitled "How to Run a House" for her friend Bennett Cerf's Random House Press. This project did not eventuate, Colbert did not write an autobiography.
Colbert was very particular regarding the way she appeared on screen. She believed that her face was difficult to light and photograph, and was obsessed with not showing her "bad" side, the right, to the camera, because of a small bump from a nose broken in childhood.[21] The vast majority of movie shots taken of Claudette Colbert were of her left profile. Thus dubbing her "the dark side of the moon".
Her reluctance to be filmed from the right side became well known in Hollywood; Doris Day once quipped, "God wasted half a face on Claudette." [22]
During filming of Since You Went Away (1944), David O. Selznick expressed frustration with some of her demands. He wrote in a memo 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."[23]
Colbert was the last choice for the role of Ellie Andrews in It Happened One Night (1934). Myrna Loy was originally offered the roles, but she felt that the script was poor, and Loy described it is one of the worst she had ever read, later noting that the final version bore little resemblance to the script she was offered.[24] Miriam Hopkins, Constance Bennett and Margaret Sullavan had each rejected the part,[25] Bette Davis was unavailable,[26] and Carole Lombard turned Ellie down.[27]
She replaced Clara Bow in Manslaughter (1930), Barbara Stanwyck in Midnight (1939), and Olivia de Havilland in Three Came Home (1950).
Claudette was originally intended to star in The Women (1939) as Mary Haines, but MGM bought the rights to the play as a vehicle for Norma Shearer, who was given the role. Claudette turned down the role of Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday (1940) and the part went to Rosalind Russell. Claudette turned down the role of Jean Harrington in The Lady Eve (1941) despite director Preston Sturges' personal interest in her playing the part, and it went to Barbara Stanwyck. In 1948, Colbert was replaced by Katharine Hepburn in the leading role in State of the Union after disagreements with Frank Capra.
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 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. Before filming started, Colbert severely injured her back, and 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. Colbert recalled, "I can say immodestly that I'm a very good comedienne. But I was always fighting that image too. I just never had the luck to play bitches. Those are the only parts that ever register really."[28]
In 1951 Colbert starred opposite Noel Coward in successful stage presentation of Island Fling at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut. The play, originally written for Gertrude Lawrence, lasted for only eight performances.
She returned to Broadway in 1956 to replace Margaret Sullavan in Janus[29][30]. In 1958, she appeared with Charles Boyer, in the long-running The Marriage-Go-Round. This was followed by Julia, Jake and Uncle Joe (1961), which after a try-out in Wilmington, Delaware, lasted for only one performance on Broadway[31][32], The Irregular Verb to Love (1963) and, in Miami, Diplomatic Relations (1965) opposite Brian Aherne. Her stage career was interrupted when her husband died in 1968. She returned to work in Fabulous Forties (1972), in Philadelphia, A Community of Two (1974), The Kingfisher (1979) in which she co-starred with Rex Harrison, A Talent for Murder (1981), with Jean-Pierre Aumont and Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All? (1985) in which she co-starred again with Harrison first in London and then on Broadway.
Colbert married twice. Her first husband was Norman Foster, an actor and later director, whom she married in 1928. She co-starred with him on the stage The Barker (1927), and in the film Young Man of Manhattan (1930). Colbert did not live with him and kept marriage a secret for many years. They divorced in Mexico in 1935.
Four months after her divorce, on 24 December 1935, Colbert married Joel Jay Pressman (1901-1968), a Los Angeles surgeon. About the mid 1950s, they moved together to Palm Springs, California, where Colbert operated a store for a time before she moved to New York. Colbert did not have any children.
She spent half of each year at Speightstown, Barbados, from the first half of 1960s, in her vacation home. There she established a reputation as a hostess. Ronald Reagan was one of her guests during his presidency, as were Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, Rex Harrison, Slim Keith and Lillian Hellman. She worked with Reagan in TV Program General Electric Theater - The Dark, Dark Hours (1954).
However, her registered domicile remained the United States. "Pamela Harriman, the American ambassador in Paris, was a great friend" said Margaret Leacock, a friend who persuaded Colbert to move to the former British colony, Barbados.
Colbert suffered a stroke in 1990 and never fully recovered; it curtailed her daily swims and speedboat rides.[33]
She died at her oceanfront home in Barbados at the age of 92, following a series of small strokes during the last two years of her life. She was interred there in the Parish of St. Peter Cemetery beside her husband and mother. A requiem mass was later held at St. Vincent Ferrer church in New York City.
Most of Colbert's estate, estimated at $3.5 million and including her Manhattan apartment and villa in Barbados, was left to a friend, Helen O'Hagan (1931—), a retired director of corporate relations at Saks Fifth Avenue, whom Colbert had met in 1961 on the set of the actress's last film.[34][35][36] The villa was later purchased by David Geffen.
During filming of So Proudly We Hail! (1943), a rift occurred between Colbert and Paulette Goddard 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". Veronica Lake 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. [37] Goddard (33 at the time) was actually closer to Colbert's age (40) than Veronica Lake's (24).
At the height of her success, Colbert was noted for her dedication to her career. Irene Dunne commented that she 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 once 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".
Colbert is cited by modern film historians as a leading female exponent of screwball comedy, along with such actresses as Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Rosalind Russell, Irene Dunne and Jean Arthur. In her comedy films, she invariably played shrewd and self reliant women, but unlike many of her contemporaries, Colbert rarely engaged in physical comedy, with her characters more likely to be observers and commentators.[38]
In her early career, Colbert played sweet ingenue roles. She always had work, but did not make much of an impression on audiences. She seldom played strictly dramatic roles.[39] Whether comedies or dramas, most of her films were undistinguished, although her performances were admired.
Colbert won the Academy Award for Best Actress for It Happened One Night and was also nominated in 1936 for Private Worlds, and in 1945 for Since You Went Away.
She was nominated for Broadway's 1959 Tony Award as Best Actress (Dramatic) for The Marriage-Go-Round, and she won the 1980 Sarah Siddons Award for Best Actress to play in Chicago for the season 1979-80 for her performance in the play, The Kingfisher.
In 1984, Colbert received a tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center. In 1987, she returned to TV in two-part film, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, opposite Ann-Margret, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Mini-series or a Special. In 1988, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for TV.
In 1984, a building at the old Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York, where she had made ten films in early career,[40] was renamed in her honour. In 1989, she was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors, and in 1991, her career was celebrated by New York University. She had a long lasting career in both Hollywood and on Broadway.
During her career, Claudette Colbert appeared in more than sixty films. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6812 Hollywood Blvd.
In 1999, she was ranked 12th by the American Film Institute in their list Greatest Female Stars of All Time.
Awards
Preceded by
Katharine Hepburn
for Morning Glory
Academy Award for Best Actress
for It Happened One Night
Succeeded by
Bette Davis
for Dangerous
Preceded by
Bob Hope and Thelma Ritter
27th Academy Awards
"Oscars" host
28th Academy Awards (with Jerry Lewis and Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Succeeded by
Jerry Lewis and Celeste Holm
29th Academy Awards
Preceded by
Olivia de Havilland
for Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-series, or Motion Picture Made for Television
for The Two Mrs. Grenvilles
Succeeded by
Katherine Helmond
for Who's the Boss
For a full chronology of Claudette Colbert's work, see Works of Claudette Colbert.
