Claudette colbert biography film
Comedy - 34 Movies Genre Average: 6. It Happened One Night.
Frank Capra. Mitchell Leisen. Bluebeard's Eighth Wife. Ernst Lubitsch. The Palm Beach Story. Preston Sturges. Thriller - 1 Movies Genre Average: 6.
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Sleep, My Love. Douglas Sirk. Film noir - 3 Movies Genre Average: 6. Thunder on the Hill. The Secret Fury. Mel Ferrer.
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War - 3 Movies Genre Average: 6. Drums Along the Mohawk. Among her frequent co-stars were Fred MacMurray in seven films — , and Fredric March in four — By the mids Colbert had turned from motion pictures to television and stage work; she earned a Tony Award nomination for The Marriage-Go-Round in Her career began to wane in the early s.
In the late s she experienced a comeback in the theater, and received a Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago theater work in Her television appearance in The Two Mrs. In , the American Film Institute named Colbert the 12th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema. Jeanne held various occupations, while Georges owned pastry and bonbon shops, and was also a major stockholder of an ink factory in which he suffered business setbacks.
Marie was willing to help Georges financially, but also encouraged him to try his luck in the U. To pursue more employment opportunities, Colbert and her family, including Marie and Emily Loew, emigrated to Manhattan in They lived in a fifth-floor walk-up at 53rd Street. Colbert stated that she was always climbing those stairs until the age of Before Colbert entered public school, she quickly learnt British English from Marie, [ 12 ] and grew up bilingual, speaking both English and French.
Her brother was drafted as private first class. Colbert's mother was an opera music fan, and her aunt was a dressmaker. Colbert studied at Washington Irving High School , which was known for its strong arts program. Her speech teacher, Alice Rostetter, encouraged her to audition for a play Rostetter had written. Vincent Millay, at the age of Intending to become a fashion designer, she attended the Art Students League of New York , where she paid for her art education by working in a dress shop.
After attending a party with writer Anne Morrison , Colbert was offered a bit part in Morrison's play, [ 14 ] and appeared on the Broadway stage in a small role in The Wild Westcotts She had used the name Claudette, instead of Lily, since high school; for her stage name, she added her paternal grandmother's maiden name, Colbert. Colbert worked in a string of mostly short-lived shows in Chicago, Washington D.
In the actor Leslie Howard met her, was impressed by her ability to speak with both Mid-Atlantic and British accents, and contacted the producer Al Woods to cast her in Frederick Lonsdale 's The Fake , but she was replaced by Frieda Inescort before it opened. During this period she disliked being typecast as a French maid. Now believed to be lost , [ 22 ] the film did not fare well at the box office.
In , Colbert signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. The Lady Lies was a box-office success. With her first husband Norman Foster she co-starred in the film Young Man of Manhattan , for which he received negative reviews as one of her weakest leading men. Colbert co-starred with Fredric March in Manslaughter , acclaimed again by critics [ 24 ] for her performance as a woman charged with vehicular manslaughter.
Parkes , a French-language version of Slightly Scarlet for the European market, although her French was tinged with an English accent after American life. It was also screened in the United States. Colbert's career got a further boost when she played the supporting role as femme fatale Poppaea in Cecil B. In one of the best-remembered scenes of her film career, she bathes nude in a marble pool filled with asses' milk.
In , Colbert renegotiated her contract with Paramount to allow her to appear in films for other studios. The pioneering screwball comedy film [ 32 ] Three-Cornered Moon reached No. Partly as results, she was ranked as the year's 13th box-office star. Many of her early films were dramatics, and her performances were admired. Colbert was initially reluctant to appear in the screwball comedy It Happened One Night It was the second highest-grossing picture of that year in the United States.
Colbert's rising profile internationally allowed her to renegotiate her contract, which raised her salary. In , Colbert signed a new contract with Paramount, making her Hollywood's highest-paid actress. Colbert was 5 ft 5 in cm tall. Colbert was very particular about how she appeared on-screen, and believed her face was difficult to light and photograph.
She insisted on having the right side of her face away from the camera when shooting close-up, because of a small bump from a broken nose as a child. Gary Cooper was terrified at the prospect of working with Colbert in his first comedy, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife , considering Colbert an expert in the genre. Colbert learnt about lighting and cinematography, and refused to begin filming until she was satisfied that she would be shown to her best advantage.
During this time, she began performing on CBS 's popular radio program Lux Radio Theater , and was heard in 22 episodes between and She secured roles in several prestigious films and this period marked the height of her earning power. However, Colbert once often said that Arise, My Love was her favorite of all her movies.
Preston Sturges ' mature The Palm Beach Story had been accepted some re-evaluation over the years as a comedic classic, [ 61 ] where she did one of the best performances of her film career, [ 62 ] which featured such a thing as beauty that speaks of intelligence. During filming of So Proudly We Hail! Goddard said that Colbert "was at [my] eyes at every moment".
Goddard insisted that portions of the script be rewritten so that her role was as large as Colbert's. Selznick approached her to play the lead in Since You Went Away Colbert was initially reluctant to appear as a mother of teenaged children, but Selznick eventually convinced her to take the role. One critic praised aspects of the film, but particularly Colbert's work.
In , Colbert ended her association with Paramount and continued to freelance in such films as Guest Wife with Don Ameche. While working on it, director Mervyn LeRoy described Colbert as an "interesting" lady to work with, recalling her habit of not watching where she was going and constantly bumping into things. For the melodrama Tomorrow Is Forever , Jean Louis was hired to create 18 changes of wardrobe for her.
Claudette colbert films: Claudette Colbert was a actress who was born in in France and died in known for: It Happened One Night, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, Midnight, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Palm Beach Story, Sleep, My Love, Cleopatra, Imitation of Life, Arise, My Love and Thunder on the Hill.
She achieved great success opposite Fred MacMurray in the comedy The Egg and I , which was the year's second-highest grossing picture , and later acknowledged as the 12th-most profitable American film of the s. By , she still ranked as the 22nd-highest box-office star. The romantic comedy Bride for Sale , wherein Colbert played part of a love triangle that included George Brent and Robert Young , was well-reviewed.
In , Colbert was asked to play the lead role in All About Eve , because the producer felt that she best represented the style he envisioned for the part. However, Colbert severely injured her back, forcing her to abandon the picture shortly before filming began.
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Bette Davis was cast, instead. In later life, Colbert said, "I just never had the luck to play bitches. In the early s, Colbert traveled to Europe for tax purposes [ 11 ] and joined fewer films. The Smiling Lieutenant. Ernst Lubitsch. The Best of Broadway. The Gilded Lily. Wesley Ruggles. Aubrey Smith , Luis Alberni The Big Pond. Hobart Henley.
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Three Cornered Moon. Elliott Nugent. The Egg and I. Chester Erskine. American film actress, famed for her warmth, dignified bearing, and charm, who made 62 films, playing sirens, comic roles, and serious dramatic parts alike. Born Claudette Chauchoin in Paris, France, on September 13, not the as listed on her early passport; a mistake she did not correct until she was 75 ; died on the Caribbean Island of Barbados on July 30, ; came to U.
Spent her last years between her New York apartment and her retirement home on the Caribbean Island of Barbados. Grenville in "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles"; included in the Kennedy Center Honors Washington, Appeared in the television miniseries, "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" Born Claudette Chauchoin in Paris on September 13, , Claudette Colbert was called Lily as a child so that biographies occasionally give her real name as Lily Chauchoin.
Her father Georges was an office worker; her mother Jeanne Chauchoin , who lived to be 94 and was, by her daughter's own admission, the dominant force in her life, was a native of the Isle of Jersey and was raised bi-lingually in French and English. A marvelous singer, Jeanne Chauchoin had longed for a career in opera and enthusiastically supported her daughter's decision to go on the stage.
It was Claudette's grandmother Marie Loew , who encouraged the family to migrate to the United States , and she accompanied them when they decided to do so in , when Claudette was six. They must be counted among the enormous wave of immigration that engulfed the East Coast cities of America in the decade immediately prior to the First World War, an immigration, however, that contained relatively few natives of France.
In later years, Colbert recalled the importance of her mother and grandmother's ability to speak English in getting the family settled in its new homeland. Once in New York, the Chauchoins took an apartment in the East 50s where Claudette and her brother Charles attended public school. The family attempted to preserve as much of its French heritage as it could at home; Claudette was raised French-speaking, and she and her brother, who later became her agent, were not allowed to play in the city streets.
Colbert's early goal was to become a fashion designer, but, after graduating from Washington Irving High School in , her first employment was as a stenographer in a New York office. Agreeing to give the theater a try, Claudette made her debut in this production in Stamford, Connecticut, in , at age 19, changing her surname from Chauchoin to the equally French but at least pronounceable Colbert.
Originally only three lines, her part was quickly expanded after the Connecticut opening, but the play was not a success in New York. Nevertheless, Colbert received excellent reviews and decided that she never wanted to do anything but act again. The producer Al Woods now took an interest in her career and, placing her under contract, saw to it that she found regular work on the New York stage.
Although the parts she played were small in plays now long-forgotten— We've Got to Have Money , The Marionette Man, The Cat Came Back, High Stakes , and Leah Kleschma all in —they were excellent "acting classes" for a neophyte, and Colbert gradually developed her natural talents, scoring her first success in the farce A Kiss in a Taxi in This was followed by the mystery play, Ghost Train , and the expensively mounted but short-lived spectacle, The Pearl of Great Price both In , Colbert had her first striking success as Lou, the snake charmer, in Kenyon Nicholson's drama of circus life, The Barker , starring Walter Huston and Norman Foster, the latter of whom she married on March 13, The play not only ran performances in New York but also served as the vehicle for Colbert's.
London debut the following year. Since talkies had made their appearance the previous year, the film was poorly received, but it was directed by Frank Capra , who would be greatly influential in her movie career. Disappointed in the film and swearing never to appear in another, Colbert resumed her stage career, appearing successively in Fast Life and Tin Pan Alley ; before the end of the decade, her photograph was being featured in such magazines as Theater and Theater Arts.
I can say immodestly that I was a very good comedienne, but I was always fighting that image too. I just never had the luck to play bitches. Colbert was appearing in one of Eugene O'Neill's less distinguished plays, the drama Dynamo , when Paramount Studios bought out her contract from Woods. She thus joined the exodus of stage artists to the world of filmmaking, where talking films required the services of actors who knew how to speak.
Signed by Paramount to a double contract fourteen years instead of the conventional seven , Colbert was immediately cast in The Hole in the Wall , co-starring Edward G. The Lady Lies was a hit, and thereafter Colbert was cast in one picture after another. Her ability to speak flawless French was an early asset, for she recreated her role in The Hole in the Wall in the French version of the film and also appeared in the French version of Slightly Scarlet , released as L'Enigmatique Mr.
Parkes , with Adolph Menjou. She did not move to California until