Gloria Stuart

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Gloria Stuart

from the film Here Comes the Navy (1934)
Born Gloria Frances Stewart
July 4, 1910 (1910-07-04) (age 97)
Santa Monica, California, United States
Spouse(s) Blair Gordon Newell (1930-1934)
Arthur Sheekman (1934-1978)

Gloria Stuart (born July 4, 1910) is an Academy Award, Golden Globe nominated and Screen Actors Guild Award winning American stage, television and film actress and artist best known as for her roles as the 100-year-old Rose in the film Titanic and as the invisible man's sweetheart in The Invisible Man.

Contents

[edit] Born

Born Gloria Frances Stewart in Santa Monica, California, she changed the spelling of her last name when she commenced her acting career because "Stuart" fit better on a theater marquee.

[edit] Career

[edit] 1930s

After acting in college and in other amateur productions, Stuart was discovered at the Pasadena Playhouse and signed to a contract by Universal Studios in 1932. She was also selected as one of the thirteen WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1932.

As a glamorous blonde, she was quickly cast in a variety of films and became a favourite of director James Whale, appearing in his films The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Kiss Before the Mirror and Secrets of the Blue Room.

Stuart's career with Universal Studios failed to gain momentum, and she moved to 20th Century Fox. By the end of the decade, she had starred in more than forty films, including Roman Scandals and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm but had not become a major star. Some of her co-stars during the 1930s included Lionel Barrymore, Kay Francis, Claude Rains, Raymond Massey, Paul Lukas, John Boles, John Beal, and Shirley Temple.

[edit] Marriage

In 1934, she married the screenwriter, Arthur Sheekman, writer of many of the Marx Brothers movies and Groucho's closest friend. In 1935, their daughter, Sylvia, was born, who later married Gene Thompson. They had four children, and named Groucho as godfather to Dinah Sapia, one of the children. In 1939, Stuart and Sheekman took a trip around the world, and, when they returned to California at the outbreak of the war, Stuart worked for the war effort, became a famous hostess at the legendary Garden of Allah, and made a few more films, but her career was fizzling. She turned her energies to a decorating shop, Décor, Ltd, where she sold the découpage furniture she created: lamps, frames, tables, globes. In 1954, living in Rapallo on the Italian Riviera, she took up oil painting. She had her first one woman show at the prestigious Hammer Galleries in New York, and she became well respected with her work being exhibited throughout the United States and Europe.

[edit] 1970s

After a thirty year break from acting, she appeared in the 1975 television movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden and over the next few years appeared regularly on television. She made her first cinema appearance in almost forty years when she appeared in My Favourite Year in 1982—one of her favorite scenes in all her movies, dancing with Peter O'Toole—but she had no lines. She also married twice- when her second husband died in 1978.

[edit] 1980s-present

Stuart as 101-year-old Rose in Titanic
Stuart as 101-year-old Rose in Titanic

In 1984, at the age of 74, Stuart branched yet another career off her artwork. Her close friend, the California printer Ward Ritchie, taught her to print on his venerable hand press. She became a fine printer, founding a private press under the name "Imprenta Glorias". Since then, she has created a substantial number of artists books that are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the Library of Congress, The J. Paul Getty Museum, the Morgan Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and la Bibliothèque nationale de France. In her 97th year, she is still at work every day in her studio. She has bequeathed her press and collection of rare metal type to Mills College.

In old age, Stuart achieved a level of celebrity she had never experienced during her years as a Hollywood contract player, when cast in Titanic. As the 101-year-old Rose Dawson Calvert, she received her first Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for the 70th Academy Awards as well as a Golden Globe nomination and a Screen Actors Guild Award win for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. At age 87, Stuart became the oldest nominee ever for a competitive acting Oscar, and she still holds this record. Although the Oscar and the Golden Globe were won by Kim Basinger, Stuart tied with Basinger for the SAG Award.

Stuart found herself relatively in demand after this and was constantly employed, as much as her age and health permitted, with her most recent roles being in a Murder, She Wrote TV movie in 2001, and Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty.

Stuart was awarded her Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame on her great-grandson, Dylan Sapia's birthday. The family was there for the unveiling. She remains close friends with Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland, with whom she has been friends for decades. Of the fifteen girls selected as "WAMPAS Baby Stars" in 1932, only Stuart, Mary Carlisle, and Dorothy Layton are still living.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Television

[edit] External links

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Awards
Preceded by
Lauren Bacall
for The Mirror Has Two Faces		 Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1997
for Titanic		 Succeeded by
Kathy Bates
for Primary Colors
Preceded by
Alice Krige
for Star Trek: First Contact		 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
1997
for Titanic		 Succeeded by
Joan Allen
for Pleasantville
Preceded by
None		 OFCS Award for Best Supporting Actress
1997
for Titanic		 Succeeded by
Joan Allen
for Pleasantville
Preceded by
Irma P. Hall
for A Family Thing		 KCFCC Award for Best Supporting Actress
1997
for Titanic		 Succeeded by
Judi Dench
for Shakespeare in Love
Persondata
NAME Stuart, Gloria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stewart, Gloria Frances
SHORT DESCRIPTION Actor
DATE OF BIRTH 1910-7-4
PLACE OF BIRTH Santa Monica, California, United States
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH