Paulette Goddard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paulette Goddard

in Second Chorus (1940).
Born June 3, 1910 [1]
Whitestone Landing, Queens, Long Island, New York, USA
Died April 23, 1990
Ronco, Switzerland

Paulette Goddard (June 3, 1910 [2] – April 23, 1990) was an Oscar-nominated American film and theatre actress. A former child fashion model and in several Broadway productions as Ziegfeld Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. Her exceptional beauty and fame led to several marriages to notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque, although she never had any children.

Contents

[edit] Early life and career

Paulette Goddard's birth name is believed to have been either Pauline Marion Levy or Pauline Goddard Levy; she was an only child, born in Whitestone Landing, Queens, Long Island, New York. Her father, Joseph Russell Levy, was Jewish, and her mother, Alta Mae Goddard, was Episcopalian ([3]).

She became a fashion model as a teenager, and a member of the Ziegfeld Follies at the age of 13 or 14 in 1924. She attended Washington Irving High School in Manhattan at the same time as Claire Wemlinger, who would become acclaimed Oscar-winning actress Claire Trevor.

Her stage debut was in the Ziegfeld revue production No Foolin in 1926. The next year she made her stage acting debut in The Unconquerable Male. She married the Broadway writer Edgar James in 1926 or 1927, but divorced him in 1930.

Charlie Chaplin and Goddard in Modern Times (1936)
Enlarge
Charlie Chaplin and Goddard in Modern Times (1936)

In 1929 she went to Hollywood after signing a contract with Hal Roach Studios, and appeared in small parts of several films over the next few years, starting with Laurel & Hardy short subjects.

At Samuel Goldwyn Productions, she also joined other such future notables as Betty Grable, Lucille Ball and Jane Wyman as "Goldwyn Girls" with Cantor in films such as The Kid from Spain, Roman Scandals and Kid Millions.

In 1932, she met Charlie Chaplin in person, and began an eight year personal and cinematic relationship with him. Chaplin bought Goddard's contract from Roach Studios and cast her as a street urchin opposite his Tramp character in the 1936 film Modern Times, which made Goddard a star. During this time she lived with Chaplin in his Beverly Hills home ([4]).

Their marital status was and has remained a source of controversy and speculation; Chaplin stated in his 1964 autobiography that they were married in China in 1936, but in private he claimed that they were never legally married, except in common law. Regardless, they dissolved the union amicably in 1942, and Chaplin agreed to a generous divorce settlement ([5]).

Goddard began gaining star status after appearing in The Young In Heart (1938), Dramatic School (1938), and a strong supporting role in The Women (1939) which starred Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, and Rosalind Russell.

During filming of The Women Goddard was considered as a finalist for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, but after several auditions, and a Technicolor screen test, lost the part to Vivien Leigh. It has been suggested that questions regarding her marital status with Chaplin, in that era of morals clauses, may have cost her the role ([6]).

Nonetheless, in 1939 Goddard signed a contract with Paramount pictures and her next film The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, was a decisive turning point in the careers of both actors.

[edit] Paramount Pictures

Goddard starred with Chaplin again in his 1940 film classic The Great Dictator, and then was Fred Astaire's leading lady in the musical Second Chorus (1940). She also made three comedies with Bob Hope: The Cat and the Canary (1939), The Ghost Breakers (1940), and Nothing But The Truth (1941). She also starred in Pot o' Gold (1941), with James Stewart, Hold Back the Dawn (1941), with Charles Boyer and Olivia DeHavilland, and three Cecil B. DeMille epics, North West Mounted Police (1940), with Gary Cooper; Reap the Wild Wind (1942), with John Wayne; and Unconquered (1947), again with Cooper. In The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) she starred opposite Burgess Meredith, whom she eventually married and divorced. One of her best-remembered film appearances was in the variety musical Star Spangled Rhythm (1943) in which she sang a comic number "A Sweater, a Sarong, and a Peekaboo Bang" with her contemporary sex symbols, Dorothy Lamour and Veronica Lake. She was often paired with leading men at Paramount such as Ray Milland in Reap the Wild Wind (1942) , Kitty (1945) , The Lady Has Plans (1942), and The Crystal Ball (1943) and Fred MacMurray in The Forest Rangers (1942), Standing Room Only (1944), and Suddenly It's Spring (1947).

For Alexander Korda Goddard made An Ideal Husband (1947), with Michael Wilding and Diana Wynyard. In 1949's Bride of Vengeance she played Lucrezia Borgia , and in 1953 the title role in The Sins of Jezebel.

She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1944 for So Proudly We Hail! (1943), and had some successful roles after that, but her career faded in the late 1940s. In 1949 she formed Monterey pictures with John Steinbeck. Her last starring roles were the English production A Stranger Came Home (known as The Unholy Four in the USA), and Charge of the Lancers in 1954. In 1964 she made a comeback attempt in films with a supporting role in the Italian film Time of Indifference.

[edit] Later life

Goddard was married to actor Burgess Meredith from 1944 to 1949. In 1958 she married the author Erich Maria Remarque. They remained married until his death in 1970.

Goddard was treated for breast cancer, apparently successfully, although the surgery was very invasive and the doctor had to remove several ribs. She later settled in Ronco, Switzerland, where she died a few months before her 80th birthday following a short battle with emphysema.

In her will, she left US $20 million to New York University (NYU), due to her friendship with Indiana-born politician and former NYU President John Brademas. Goddard Hall, an NYU freshman residence hall on Washington Square, is named for her.

She is buried in Ronco cemetery, where her late husband, Erich Maria Remarque, is also buried.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  1. ↑  Although there is much inconsistency among published sources about Goddard's year of birth (e.g., at the time of her death, officials in Switzerland, where she died, listed her year of birth as 1905), the U.S. Census taken on April 15, 1910, shows her parents living in Manhattan and still childless; and the U.S. Census taken on January 1, 1920, shows Paulette Goddard (as Pauline G. Levy), age 9, living with her parents in Kansas City, Missouri.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../p/a/u/Paulette_Goddard_0933.html"