Claudette Colbert

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Inimitably charming, witty and sophisticated star of American films from the start of talkies till the mid-1950s, and later a most welcome presence on the stage and in occasional TV. Born in Paris, Claudette Colbert moved to New York when her banker father encountered financial setbacks. Initially intending to become a commercial artist, she studied with speech teacher Alice Rossetter to overcome a slight lisp. Rossetter encouraged Colbert to audition for a play she had just written, "The Widow's Veil" (1919), and so one of the most durable careers in show business began with an appearance as an Irish bride (complete with red wig and brogue).

Colbert made her Broadway debut four years later in "The Wild Westcotts" and managed to keep busy in a series of mostly unrewarding stage roles. In 1925 playwright Frederick Lonsdale insisted that Colbert be replaced in the lead role of his "The Fake". Forced to either leave the show or accept the role of understudy (she chose the latter) the disheartened ingenue could not have foreseen that sixty years later she would be starring on Broadway at age 82 in a revival of Lonsdale's "Aren't We All?" (1985).

Colbert's break came in 1927 when she essayed a role that would later seem like classic miscasting: the sluttish Lou in "The Barker". Her seductive use of her trim figure led Walter Winchell to dub her "Legs" Colbert (an apt nickname given the means by which Colbert's character in "It Happened One Night" practiced the fine art of hitchhiking). Playing the object of Lou's seductive wiles was boyish Norman Foster, who would soon become Colbert's first husband. The success of "The Barker" led to Colbert's screen debut (and her only silent feature), "For the Love of Mike", directed by Frank Capra. After the film was panned critically and failed financially, its leading lady vowed, "I shall never make another film."

Two years later, however, unable to follow up the success of "The Barker", Colbert took another stab at the movies, signing with Paramount and working at the old Astoria studios so that she could continue her New York stage work. Her carefully modulated alto voice and brisk sincerity quickly gained critical approval in a series of modest soaps and melodramas. Moving to Hollywood, her career rose with such notable features as "The Smiling Lieutenant" (1931, directed by Ernst Lubitsch), Cecil B. DeMille's "The Sign of the Cross" (1932), in which Colbert's Empress Poppaea took a famous bath in asses' milk, and James Cruze's "I Cover the Waterfront" (1933), where she touchingly portayed a child of the wharves who must choose between a transgressive father and a crusading reporter.

It was, however, with "It Happened One Night" (1934, also directed by Capra), that Colbert, on loan-out to struggling Columbia Pictures, really achieved top stardom. Cast as the silk purse which held Clark Gable's rough diamond, Colbert's chic elegance and supple wisecracking were matched by a low-key warmth and humanity that audiences fell for. Convinced that a comedy performance could not cop her the Best Actress Oscar for the year, Colbert was on board a train for New York when she was stopped and whisked to the Academy ceremonies to collect her prize. She had reached her peak and continued in a series of roles that epitomized the tongue-in-cheek Colbert persona: secretaries and struggling actresses who captivate the horsey set ("The Gilded Lily", "She Married Her Boss", both 1935), aristocrats who work as maids or working women who masquerade as aristocrats ("Tovarich" 1937; the superb "Midnight" 1939, one of her best), and young society matrons who indulge in screwball antics ("Bluebeard's Eighth Wife" 1938, unfortunately her only other film with Lubitsch; Preston Sturges's zany classic, "The Palm Beach Story" 1942).

With her round apple-face, prominent cheekbones, trademark curled bangs, puissant playfulness and glistening timing, Colbert is usually associated with romantic comedy. She also distinguished herself, though, in dramas ranging from the pioneering psychological study, "Private Worlds" (1935) to the gentle slice of schoolteacher Americana, "Remember the Day" (1941). Free-lancing more as the 1940s progressed, she did not eschew mother roles in such films as the moving if overly idealized "Mrs. Miniver in America" saga, "Since You Went Away" (1944). Several of her late 40s films (especially the modest "The Egg and I" 1947, which launched the highly popular Ma and Pa Kettle characters in supporting roles) did well enough at the boxoffice to sustain her career, but apart from the restrained, sensible study of women in Japanese concentration camps, "Three Came Home" (1950), Colbert's film career gradually declined in quality, activity and scope. "Let's Make It Legal" (1951) was a belated farewell to the type of comedy she had made her own, while "Texas Lady" (1955) was a watchable but routine Western which only utilized Colbert's zest.

TV took up much of the slack in the mid-50s; Colbert also returned to the stage opposite fellow sophisticates Noel Coward (in "Island Fling") and Charles Boyer (in "The Marriage Go-Round"). Apart from a notable period of inactivity in the late 60s after the death of her second husband, Colbert's later career was marked by several very successful comebacks on both stage ("The Kingfisher" 1978) and TV ("The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" 1987) where she displayed the same stylishness and intelligence which made her such a wonderful archetype of the modern working woman.

Also Credited As:
Lily Emilie Chauchoin
Born:
September 13, 1903 in Paris, France
Died:
July 30, 1996.
Job Titles:
Actor, French tutor, Dress shop employee

Family

Brother: Charles Colbert. older; born c. 1898; helped manage Colbert s career for a time; died in 1971
Father: George Claude Chauchoin. died in 1925
Mother: Jeanne Chauchoin. died in April 1970

Significant Others

Companion: Clark Gable. reportedly had affair during filming of It Happened One Night
Companion: Helen O Hagan. was Colbert s companion from c. 1970

Education

Washington Irving High School, New York, New York

Milestones

1912 Moved from Paris to New York after father suffered financial reverses in the banking business
1919 Made stage debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in The Widow s Veil , written by her speech teacher, Alice Rossetter
1923 Made Broadway stage debut in The Wild Westcotts
1925 Replaced in leading role of Frederick Lonsdale s The Fake
1926 Traveled to Paris; returned to New York to comply with five-year contract she had recently signed with producer Al Woods
1927 Enjoyed major Broadway success as the female lead in The Barker
1927 Film acting debut in the silent, For the Love of Mike
1928 Film contract with First National aborted after failure of first film
1928 Journeyed with Foster to Paris to recreate their stage roles in The Barker
1928 Marriage to Norman Foster (in 1927) revealed by New York columnist
1928 Signed film contract with Paramount which enabled her to continue stage career
1929 Made talking film debut in second film, The Hole in the Wall
1929 Played leading roles in two unsuccessful plays by noted playwrights Eugene O Neill ( Dynamo ) and Elmer Rice ( See Naples and Die , her last stage appearance for over 20 years)
1931 Position in film industry elevated by success of Ernst Lubitsch s popular The Smiling Lieutenant
1932 Appeared in largest film to date: as Poppaea in Cecil B. DeMille s epic, The Sign of the Cross
1932 Briefly went off salary for refusing bland roles
1933 Renegotiated contract with Paramount; allowed to appear in films at other studios
1934 Enjoyed landmark career success in Frank Capra s popular and acclaimed Oscar-winner, It Happened One Night while on loan to Columbia
1934 Signed new two-year contract with Paramount; earned $5000 per week
1935 Co-starred opposite Fred MacMurray for the first of seven films together (in his first substantial lead) in the popular The Gilded Lily
1935 Was named best-dressed actress in Hollywood
1936 Negotiated new contract with Paramount which called for seven films at $150,000 per film
1936 Plans to star as Joan of Arc in a film directed by Anatole Litvak fell through
1938 Was the sixth top money-making woman in America with an income of $301,944 ($50,000 less than she had made the year before, when she placed fourteenth)
1939 Starred in first color film, Drums Along the Mohawk , directed by John Ford and co-starring Henry Fonda
1941 Joined with Ronald Colman, Charles Boyer, Irene Dunne, Lewis Milestone and Anatole Litvak to form producing unit at Twentieth-Century Fox; Colbert starred in Fox film, Remember the Day
1944 Played a mother with teen-aged daughters for the first time in David O. Selznick s acclaimed homefront saga, Since You Went Away
1945 Left Paramount Pictures after having spent most of her starring career there; last film under contract, Practically Yours
1947 Made motion picture exhibitor s poll of top ten box office stars; placed 9th
1948 Replaced by Katharine Hepburn in leading role in State of the Union after disagreements with director Frank Capra
1950 Replaced in leading role in All About Eve by Bette Davis after suffering severe back injury
1951 Announcments made that she would star in a TV series, Leave It to Lizabeth ; filmed pilot, but backed out of series commitment
1951 Made TV debut on The Jack Benny Show
1951 Starred in last screen romantic comedy, Let s Make It Legal
1951 Starred opposite Noel Coward in successful stage presentation of Island Fling/South Sea Bubble
1952 Worked in Europe in film and theater; made fewer films, but starred in two in France
1952 Traveled to England to star in Outpost in Malaya
1954 Made pact with CBS to star in five teleplays after successful appearance in The Royal Family of Broadway
1955 Last starring role in an American feature film, Texas Lady
1956 Replaced Margaret Sullavan in the female lead of the Broadway play, Janus
1958 Returned to Broadway to originate a role after 27 years to star opposite Charles Boyer in the popular sex farce, The Marriage Go-Round
1959 Last major acting role on TV for 25 years, in The Bells of St. Mary s
1961 One-shot return to films: played Troy Donahue s mother in the popular soap opera, Parrish
1963 Appeared in Maxwell House Coffee TV commercials and billboard advertisements
1965 Made last stage appearance for almost a decade, opposite Brian Ahearne in Diplomatic Relations
1969 Announced that she was going to write a book entitled How to Run a House for her friend s Bennett Cerf s Random House Press; book did not materialize
1972 Made rare public appearance at the Fabulous Forties nostalgia night at Manhattan s Roseland
1974 Returned to the stage to appear in A Community of Two in Philadelphia
1978 Returned to Broadway to star opposite Rex Harrison in The Kingfisher
1981 Acted on Broadway in A Talent for Murder
1982 Appeared on the American Film Institute s televised salute to Frank Capra
1984 A building at the old Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York (where she had made her first films for Paramount) was renamed in her honor
1984 Received tribute for lifetime achievement from the Film Society of Lincoln Center
1987 Returned to TV to star opposite Ann-Margret in two-part film, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles
1991 Career celebrated with ceremony and retrospective at New York University
Hosted monthly CBS afternoon information series, The Women
Made motion picture exhibitors poll of top ten boxoffice stars: 6th place in 1935 and 8th place in 1936
Reunited in London and on Broadway with Rex Harrison in revival of Frederick Lonsdale s drawing-room comedy, Aren t We All?