Claudette Colbert

Early life

Émilie "Lily" Claudette Chauchoin was born in 1903 in Saint-Mandé, France, to Jeanne (née Loew, with British Channel Islands heritage), and Georges Chauchoin. Although christened "Émilie", she was called "Lily" after the famous Jersey-born actress Lillie Langtry. Her mother had intended to name her daughter Lily, but the pastor mistakenly chose the baptismal name Émilie, so she was always called Lily in the family. Colbert's brother, Charles, was born in the Bailiwick of Jersey in 1898. Georges owned and managed a chain store of pastry and bonbon shops (more than eleven), and was also a major stockholder of an ink factory in which he suffered business setbacks. Colbert's uncle was living in New York City.

After some financial reverses, Colbert and her family, including her grandmother and her aunt, immigrated to Manhattan in 1906.

Colbert's legal name is formally registered in the U.S. as Lily Claudette Chauchoin. They lived in a fifth-floor walk-up at 53rd Street. Colbert later stated that she was always climbing those stairs until the age of 18. Georges worked as a minor official in the foreign department at First National City Bank, and each member of the family was later naturalized as a U.S. citizen. Colbert grew up bilingual, having learnt Channel Island English from her grandmother before she entered public school. She had hoped to become a painter ever since she first gripped a pencil. Colbert's mother was an opera music fan, who had an excellent singing voice, and her aunt was a dressmaker. Inspired by the latter, Colbert began sketching people's fashion designs.

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. In 1921, at the age of 17, Colbert made her stage debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in revivals of Rostetter's The Widow's Veil and Aria da Capo by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her interests, though, still leaned towards painting, fashion design, and commercial art.

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, and appeared on the Broadway stage in a small role in The Wild Westcotts (1923). She had used the name Claudette, instead of Lily, since high school; for her stage name, she added the maiden name (Colbert) of her father's grandmother, after her brother used the surname Wendling, borrowed from their maternal grandmother's maiden name. Her father died in 1925.

Career

Beginnings, 1923–1928

Between 1923 and 1927, Colbert joined a stock company, managed by Jessie Bonstelle, and worked in a string of mostly short-lived shows in regional theaters such as those in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston and Connecticut in plays such as Leah Kleschna, We've Got to Have Money, The Cat Came Back, High Stakes, and The Marionette Man which enabled her to gain experience in different genres. In 1924 the English 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. After signing a five-year contract with Woods, Colbert performed in eleven Broadway productions from 1925 to 1929, while still belonging to a stock company until 1927. During this period she rejected being typecast such as a French maid, earning a reputation from critics for being composed and impressive.

By 1925 she was having success in the comedy A Kiss in a Taxi, which ran for 103 performances over a two-month period. Columnists sang the praises of her unconventional beauty and her power to enrapture an audience. Colbert was again acclaimed for The Ghost Train (1926, thriller) and The Pearl of Great Price (also 1926). The following year, The Barker (as a carnival snake charmer) run for 221 performances on Broadway, and she reprised the role in London's West End.

She was noticed by theatrical producer Leland Hayward, who suggested her for the heroine role in the silent film For the Love of Mike (1927), directed by Frank Capra. Now believed to be lost, the film did not fare well at the box office. After that, she continued to appear on the stage, in several plays such as Fast Life (1928) and Eugene O’Neill's Dynamo (1929).

In 1928, Colbert signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. A demand existed for stage actors who could handle dialogue in the new "talkies", and Colbert's elegance and musical voice were among her best assets.

Early films, 1929–1934

Her distinctive high-cheekboned beauty drew attention in The Hole in the Wall (1929), but at first she did not like film acting. Her co-star Edward G. Robinson later said, "She was one grand trouper—a pro all the way".

Her earliest films were produced in New York. During appearing nightly in the play See Naples and Die on the stage, she was also the filming of The Lady Lies (also 1929). The film was a box-office success.

Her acting looks much more natural in these films than her later ones. By then, her acting style was recognized as the "Claudette Colbert manner". At this period, many film critics wrote her having potential to be the screen's next big star. When the Great Depression shut down most of the theaters, she decided to make other films.

In 1930, Colbert starred opposite Maurice Chevalier in The Big Pond, which was a high-quality musical film that featured their songs. She co-starred with her first husband, Norman Foster, in Young Man of Manhattan (1930). However, he received negative reviews as one of her weakest leading men. She was cast in a critically acclaimed crime drama Manslaughter (1930, co-starring Fredric March),

which remained screenwriter-director George Abbott's favorite of his own films.

Those previous works had established her position within the studio system that dominated American filmmaking. Colbert starred in Mysterious Mr. Parkes (1930), 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.

She was paired with March again in

Dorothy Arzner's romantic drama Honor Among Lovers (1931), which was well-received by the public. She sang and played piano/violin in Ernst Lubitsch musical The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture as well as being a box-office hit and critical success. March was also originally cast as her co-star in His Woman (1931), but was replaced by Gary Cooper. Cooper felt that her acting skills was so far greater than his own.

Mid-career, 1935–1944

Colbert's rising profile internationally allowed her to renegotiate her contract, which raised her salary. For 1935 and 1936, she was listed sixth and eighth in Quigley's annual "Top-Ten Money-Making Stars Poll".

The Gilded Lily (directed by Wesley Ruggles) was popular, which was ranked the fifth best English language film by the National Board of Review in 1935.

That success carried over to both films, She Married Her Boss (1935) and The Bride Comes Home (1935). But she earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role in Gregory La Cava's pioneering psychological drama Private Worlds (1935). She starred in Frank Lloyd's adventure film Under Two Flags (1936, featuring Ronald Colman), which also brought her success at the box-office.

In 1936, Colbert signed a new contract with Paramount, making her Hollywood's highest-paid actress. When the studio renewed her contract in 1938, she was again reported to be Hollywood's top-paid actress, with a salary of $426,924. At the peak of her popularity in the late 1930s, she earned $150,000 per film. In 1935, she was elected best-dressed film actress in the U.S.. In 1937 and 1938, she was listed as the fourteenth and sixth (respectively) top money-making woman in the U.S..

Since it hit television in 1960, the historical drama Maid of Salem (1937) enhanced the esteem. However, at that period, her representative works were those modern comedies, I Met Him in Paris (1937, as a winter sports enthusiast) and

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938). One of her co-stars later reminisced, "She knew how to project, how to use her voice and posture and general look to highlight her best features."

Despite her slight build at a modest height, compared to the average woman of that era, she never went on a diet. Her favorite song was Cole Porter's Night and Day (1932). Her early frequent co-star Fredric March later said, "she was a wonderfully intelligent conversationalist, a really brainy woman." She had a discreet and scandal-free life, and was recognized as the least "actressy" of actresses. One biographer wrote that her on-screen image reflected her private character.

Middle years, 1945–1961

In 1945, Colbert ended her association with Paramount and continued to freelance in such films as Sam Wood's Guest Wife (1945) with Don Ameche. The film earned a Best Music Oscar nomination. She starred opposite John Wayne in RKO's Without Reservations (1946), which grossed $3 million in the U.S. 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.

That year, Tomorrow Is Forever was one of the best dramatic performances of her film career, and it was her second husband's favorite.

For a psychological drama The Secret Heart (1946), her co-star June Allyson later wrote, Colbert "gave me the moral support and acting tips that made a world of difference." These two films were also substantial commercial successes, and Colbert's popularity during 1947 led her to place 9th in Quigley's "Top Ten Money-Making Stars Poll". One critic praised her at the time for "her consistently excellent playing in mediocre pictures".

She achieved great success opposite MacMurray in the comedy The Egg and I (1947), which was the year's second-highest grossing picture, and later acknowledged as the 12th-most profitable American film of the 1940s.

Next came Douglas Sirk's suspense film Sleep, My Love (1948, with Robert Cummings), produced by Mary Pickford. By 1949, she still ranked as the 22nd-highest box-office star.

Colbert appeared with MacMurray for the seventh and final time in Family Honeymoon (1949), which was a commercial hit. Bride for Sale (1949), in which she played part of a love triangle that included Robert Young and George Brent, was well-reviewed and modestly successful. Three Came Home (1950) was also a successful Pacific war film, and brought her to win the Laurel Awards for Best Dramatic Performance (Female). For which, she was nominated for the Photoplay Award for Most Popular Female Star.

However, the mystery melodrama The Secret Fury (1950), distributed by RKO Studios, received mixed reviews. During this period, Colbert was unable to work beyond 5 p.m. each day due to orders from her doctor. While Colbert still looked like a young woman, she found it difficult making the transition to playing more mature characters as she entered middle age. She said, "I'm a very good comedienne, but I was always fighting that image, too."

Later career, 1963–1987

Colbert made numerous appearances on Broadway and in other theaters for over the next two decades: The Irregular Verb to Love (1963-1964) opposite Cyril Ritchard; in Miami, Diplomatic Relations (1965) opposite Brian Aherne; in Manhattan, Fabulous Forties (1972); in Philadelphia, A Community of Two (1974); in Detroit, recreated The Marriage Go-Round (1976) with Michael Evans; and A Talent for Murder (1981). This was followed by the 1978 play The Kingfisher (1978), with co-star Rex Harrison, for which she earned a Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago theater work in 1980; and Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All? (1985), also with Harrison, first in London and then the U.S. (including West Coast) and Australia, for which she earned a Drama Desk Special Award. She told an interviewer, "Audiences always sound like they're glad to see me, and I'm damned glad to see them."

She also appeared in Maxwell House Coffee TV commercials from 1963 to 1965. In 1969 she expressed her intention to write a book entitled How to Run a House for her friend Bennett Cerf's Random House Press. This project was never completed. Towards the end of her life, she explained why she had never written her autobiography, "I've been happy, and that's no story." She served as the narrator in the BBC TV series Yesterday's Witness episode Sylvia of Sarawak (1972).

In 1984, she received a Gala Tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Her final credits included the audiobook Gift from the Sea (1986, as narrator) and the television miniseries The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987, in a supporting role). The latter, based on the bestselling novel, was a ratings success, and for which she earned a Golden Globe and also an Emmy nomination. In 1989 she received the Kennedy Center Honors.

Modern critics have pointed out that Colbert had a unique set of assets—her heart-shaped face, distinct facial features, curly hair, aristocratic manner, relaxed acting, little mysterious, and intelligent style,—that distinguishes her from other classic cinema stars through the 1930s and 1940s. In her comedies, she invariably played shrewd, self-reliant women; unlike many of her contemporaries, though, she rarely engaged in physical comedy. Her characters were more likely to be observers and commentators.

Personal life

In 1928, Colbert married actor and director Norman Foster, with whom she co-starred in the Broadway show The Barker. Their marriage remained a secret for many years while they lived in separate homes. In Los Angeles, Colbert shared a home with her aunt and her mother. The latter disliked Foster and reputedly did not allow him into the home.

Colbert and Foster divorced in 1935 in Mexico. Until the early 1950s, Colbert's confidante was always her aunt, because her mother was imperious and indifferent to her work.

On Christmas Eve, 1935, Colbert married Dr. Joel Pressman, who eventually became a professor and chief of the head and neck surgery department of UCLA Medical School. She gave him a Beechcraft airplane as a present. They purchased a ranch in northern California, where she enjoyed horseback riding.

Colbert's mother made her brother serve as his sister's agent for a time. He was credited with negotiating some of her more lucrative contracts in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Although virtually retired from motion pictures since the mid-1950s, Colbert continued to maintain an upscale lifestyle. She had a country house in Palm Springs for weekends. An advertising executive said, "Claudette was extravagant; I never, ever saw her question the price of anything." In 1963, Colbert sold her Lloyd Wright-designed residence in Holmby Hills, and she and Dr. Pressman rented a small house in Beverly Hills.

In 1958, she met Verna Hull, a wealthy painter, photographer, and the stepdaughter of a Sears Roebuck heiress. They had a nine-year friendship that included travel, and an interest in art, and they rented twin New York penthouses. When Colbert bought a house in Barbados in the early 1960s, Hull bought a house next door, amid rumors that their friendship was a romantic one, which Colbert denied. The friendship ended after an argument that took place as Colbert's husband lay dying, during which Hull insisted that Pressman would not only take his own life, but Colbert's as well, rather than die alone.

In 1964, Colbert went on a safari trip with Pressman. The marriage lasted 33 years, until his death from liver cancer in 1968.

Final years and death

For years, Colbert divided her time between her Manhattan apartment and her vacation home in Speightstown, Barbados, West Indies. The latter, purchased from a British gentleman and nicknamed Bellerive, was the island's only plantation house fronting the beach. Her permanent address remained Manhattan. When her mother died in 1970, and her brother in 1971, Colbert's only surviving relative was her brother's first wife's daughter, Coco Lewis. After that, the widow and second wife of her brother, moved from Florida to Barbados to live with Colbert.

Colbert was a long-time friend of Nancy Reagan, whom she first met in 1950, and Ronald Reagan, with whom she starred in the TV show General Electric Theater episode The Last Town Car (1958). Colbert's other celebrity friends included Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, Slim Keith, Lillian Hellman, Frank Sinatra, and Mia Farrow.

Colbert suffered a series of small strokes during the last three years of her life. She died in 1996 in Barbados at the age of 92, where she had employed a housekeeper and two cooks. Her remains were transported to New York City for cremation and funeral services. A requiem mass was later held at Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in Manhattan. Her ashes are laid to rest in the Godings Bay Church Cemetery, Speightstown, Saint Peter, Barbados, alongside her mother and second husband.

Colbert never had children. She left most of her estate, estimated at $3.5 million and including her Manhattan apartment and Bellerive, to longtime friend Helen O'Hagan, a retired director of corporate relations at Saks Fifth Avenue. Colbert had met O'Hagan in 1961 on the set of Parrish, her last film, and they became good friends in 1970. Although O'Hagan was financially comfortable without the generous bequest, Bellerive was sold for over $2 million to David Geffen. Colbert's will also left $150,000 to her niece Coco Lewis; a trust of over $100,000 to UCLA, in Dr. Pressman's memory; and $75,000 to Marie Corbin, her Bajan housekeeper.

Selected filmography

The following is a list of feature films in which Colbert had top billing.