Jetta Goudal

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Jetta Goudal & Sidney Olcott
Jetta Goudal & Sidney Olcott

Jetta Goudal (July 12, 1891, Amsterdam – January 14, 1985, Los Angeles) was a Dutch-born American actress who became a major Hollywood star.

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[edit] Early life

Goudal was born Julie Henriette Goudeket, daughter of Mozes Goudeket (1860-1942), a wealthy, orthodox Jewish diamond cutter in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam, and Geertruida Warradijn (1866-1920) [1][2]. Jetta was tall and regal in appearance. She began her acting career on stage, traveling across Europe with various theater companies. In 1918, Julie Goudeket left a Europe ravaged by World War I to settle in New York City in the United States. Here she hid her Dutch and Jewish ancestry; she generally described herself as a "Parisienne" and on an information sheet for the Paramount Public Department she wrote that she was born at Versailles on July 12, 1901 as the daughter of Maurice Guillaume Goudal, a lawyer[1][3].

[edit] Career

She first appeared on Broadway in 1921 using the stage name Jetta (pronounced [ʒeta], with a French "J") Goudal. After meeting director Sidney Olcott, who encouraged her to try the cinema, she took on a bit part in his 1922 film production "Timothy's Quest." Convinced to move to the West Coast, Goudal appeared in two more Olcott films in the ensuing three years.

Miss Goudal's first role in motion pictures came in The Bright Shawl (1923). She quickly earned praise for her film work, especially for her performance in 1925's "Salome of the Tenements," a film based on the Anzia Yezierska novel about life in New York's Jewish Lower East Side. Goudal then worked in the Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky co-production of "The Spaniard" and her growing fame brought her to the attention of producer/director Cecil B. DeMille.

Jetta Goudal did several highly successful and acclaimed films for DeMille that made her one of the top box office draws of the late 1920s. The Gallic beauty captivated moviegoers and stories and photos of her began filling major film magazines.

However, she was a bit of a "diva" whom DeMille claimed was so difficult to work with that he eventually fired her and cancelled their contract. Goudal filed a lawsuit for breach of contract against him and his DeMille Pictures Corporation.

Although DeMille claimed her conduct had caused numerous and costly production delays, in a landmark ruling Goudal won the suit when DeMille was unwilling to provide his studio's financial records to support his claim of financial losses.

Goudal appeared in 1928's "The Cardboard Lover," produced by William Randolph Hearst and his actress/mistress, Marion Davies. In 1929 she starred in "Lady of the Pavements" directed by D.W. Griffith and in 1930, Jacques Feyder directed Goudal in her only French language film, a made-in-Hollywood production titled "Le Spectre vert."

[edit] Unwilling Retirement

However, because of her audaciousness in suing DeMille and her high-profile activisim in the Actors' Equity Association campaign for the theatre and film industry to accept a closed shop, some of the Hollywood studios turned their backs on Jetta Goudal. In 1932, at age forty-one, she made her last screen appearance in a talkie, co-starring with Will Rogers in the Fox Film Corporation production of "Business and Pleasure." Unfortunately for Jetta Goudal, her powerful presence on the silent screen was lost to both age and to a voice with a thick French accent that in talkies spelled the end to her film career.

In 1930, she had married Harold Grieve, an art director and founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. When her film career ended, she joined her husband in running a successful interior design business. They remained married until her passing in 1985 in Los Angeles. She is interred next to her husband in a private room at the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of the Angels, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

In April 1930 she suffered a nervous breakdown and was admitted to the Chase Sanitarium in Los Angeles.

In recognition of her contribution to the motion picture industry, Jetta Goudal has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6333 Hollywood Blvd. In 1984 Life Magazine said that in the 1920s Miss Goudal was the most alluring femme fatale in silent movies, also the smartest, best dressed and feistiest. She told the magazine once, I don't like being called a silent star. I was never silent.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Anthony Slide "Silent Players:A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses", University Press of Kentucky, 2002 (ISBN 081312249X), page 146
  2. ^ Information at classicimages.com
  3. ^ Charles C. Benham JETTA GOUDAL: The Exotic at classicimages.com (Sept 1999)