Claudette Colbert Totally Explained

Everything about Claudette Colbert totally explained

Claudette Colbert (IPA: /koʊlˈbɛɹ/) (September 13, 1903 – July 30, 1996) was a French-born American Academy Award-winning actress of film and theater.
   Born in Saint-Mandé, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures. She joined Paramount Pictures, and was noted for performances in screwball comedies as well as dramatic roles, receiving Academy Award nominations in both film genres.
   From the mid 1930s until the late 1940s, Colbert was one of the highest paid performers in American cinema. During the 1950s she continued to act in films, appearing in a number of television productions, but concentrated mainly on work in the theater. She remained active until the late 1980s. In her later years, she retired to her home in Barbados, where she died at the age of 92, following a series of strokes.
   In 1999, the American Film Institute placed Colbert at number 12 on their "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars" list of the "50 Greatest American Screen Legends".

Early life

Émilie Chauchoin was born in Saint-Mandé, Seine, France, to Georges Claude, a banker, and Jeanne Loew Chauchoin. After some financial reverses, her family emigrated to New York City in 1906. Colbert eventually became a naturalized citizen of the U.S.
Colbert studied at Washington Irving High School, where her speech teacher, Alice Rossetter helped her overcome a slight lisp. Rossetter encouraged her to audition for a play she'd written, and Colbert made her stage debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in The Widow's Veil, at the age of fifteen.
She then attended the Art Students League of New York and worked as a stenographer, a salesclerk in womens' clothing, and a tutor in order to pay her expenses. She intended to become a fashion designer but after she attended a party with the playwright Anne Morrison she was offered a three-line role in Morrison's new play. She appeared on the Broadway stage in a small role in The Wild Westcotts (1923). Inspired to pursue a career in theater, Colbert ended her studies and embarked on a stage career in 1925. She adopted the name "Claudette Colbert" as her stage name two years later; she'd been using the name of Claudette since high school, and Colbert was the maiden name of her maternal grandmother. See Naples and Die and Eugene O'Neill's Dynamo (1929) were unsuccessful, however she was noticed by the theatrical producer, Leland Hayward, who suggested her for a role in Frank Capra's silent film For the Love of Mike (1927), now believed to be a lost film. The film, Colbert's only silent film role, was a box office failure. While these films were popular with audiences, one of her films from this period, Young Man of Manhattan, her only collaboration with her then husband, Norman Foster, was criticized by Picturegoer magazine. The magazine criticized Foster's performance and noted him as one of Colbert's weakest leading men, writing, "He didn't seem to get any sincerity into his love scenes." She was briefly paired with March, and they made four films together, including Dorothy Arzner's Honor Among Lovers (1931), which fared well at the box-office. She sang in her role opposite Maurice Chevalier in the Ernst Lubitsch musical The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and was acknowledged by critics for her ability to assert herself opposite the more experienced Miriam Hopkins. Later the same year she played in The Phantom President, which was one of Paramount's biggest failures of the year. Other successes of this period included Tonight Is Ours (1933) with Fredric March and Torch Singer (1933), with Ricardo Cortez. In 1933, Colbert renegotiated her contract with Paramount to allow her to appear in films for other studios. However, Cecil B. DeMille's Four Frightened People (1934) failed to find a substantial audience.

Breakthrough

During 1934, Colbert's film career flourished. Of the four films she made that year, three of them – the historial biography, Cleopatra, the romantic drama, Imitation of Life and the screwball comedy, It Happened One Night were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture. Colbert was reluctant to appear as the "runaway heiress", Ellie Andrews, in the Frank Capra romantic comedy, It Happened One Night (1934), opposite Clark Gable and released by Columbia Pictures. Behind schedule after several actresses had refused the role, the studio accepted Colbert's demand that she be paid $50,000 and that filming was to be completed within four weeks to allow her to take a planned vacation. Colbert felt that the script was weak, and Capra recalled her dissatisfaction, commenting, "Claudette fretted, pouted and argued about her part... she was a tartar, but a cute one."
The film contained at least one scene that's often cited as representative of the screwball film genre and which became well known, even by people who hadn't seen the entire film. Stranded in the countryside, Colbert demonstrates to an astonished Gable how to hitchhike by displaying her leg. Colbert won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role. The film was the first to sweep all five major Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, and was a resounding box-office success. In later life, Colbert reflected upon her misgivings about the film and her lack of confidence when it was completed, commenting, "I left wondering how the movie would be received. It was right in the middle of the Depression. People needed fantasy, they needed splendor and glamour, and Hollywood gave it to them. And here we were, looking a little seedy and riding on our bus". Cleopatra (1934), in which she played the title role opposite Warren William, was a box office success. DeMille perceived Colbert as a femme fatale, and her films with him included partial nudity. Colbert didn't wish to be portrayed as overtly sexual and thereafter refused such roles.

Post 1934

Colbert's success allowed her to renegotiate her contract, raising her salary. In 1935 and 1936, she was listed in the annual "Quigley Poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars", which was compiled from the votes of movie exhibitors throughout the U.S. for the stars that had generated the most revenue in their theaters over the previous year.
   She received a second Academy Award nomination for her role in the hospital drama, Private Worlds (1935).
   In 1936, she signed a new contract with Paramount Pictures, which required her to make seven films over a two year period, and this contract made her Hollywood's highest paid actress. This was followed by a contract renewal in 1938, after which she was reported to be the highest paid performer in Hollywood with a salary of $426,924. Her films during this period include The Gilded Lily (1935) and The Bride Comes Home (1935) with Fred MacMurray, She Married Her Boss (1935), with Melvyn Douglas, Under Two Flags (1936), with Ronald Colman, Maid of Salem (1937), again with MacMurray, Tovarich (1937), with Charles Boyer, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938), with Gary Cooper, Zaza (1939), with Herbert Marshall, Midnight (1939), with Don Ameche and It's a Wonderful World (1939), with James Stewart.
   With her success, Colbert was able to assert control over the manner in which she was portrayed and she gained a reputation for being fastidious by refusing to be filmed from her right side. She believed that her face was uneven and photographed better from the left. She learned about lighting and cinematography, and refused to begin filming until she was satisfied that she'd be shown to her best advantage. An example of Colbert's determination to control the way she was photographed, took place during the filming of Tovarich in 1937, when one of her favored cameramen was dismissed by the director, Anatole Litvak. After seeing the rushes filmed by the replacement, Colbert refused to continue. She insisted on hiring her own cameraman, and offered to waive her salary if the film went over budget as a result.
   During this time she began acting for CBS' popular Lux Radio Theater, making numerous appearances between 1935 and 1954.

Later film career

In 1940, Colbert refused a seven-year contract that would have paid her $200,000 a year, as she'd found that she could command a fee of $150,000 per film as a free-lance artist. With her brother as her manager, Colbert was able to secure roles in prestigious films, and this period marked the height of her earning ability.
   Impressed by her performance in this film, but aware of Colbert's sensitivity, David O. Selznick approached her to play the lead role in Since You Went Away (1944). She balked at the prospect of playing a mother of teenaged children, but Selznick believed that she was the best candidate for the role, and valued her marketability, commenting that "even light little comedies with her have never done under a million and a half." Eventually, Colbert accepted.
   The director, John Cromwell, later noted that Colbert was "level headed, very professional and with no temperament", but Selznick expressed frustration with some of her demands. He wrote in a memo to Colbert's agent that they'd rebuilt several sets "because of her refusal to have the right side of her face photographed, on top of which we've to pay her not only a fabulous salary, but also give her two days off a month, which works out to $5000 every four weeks for doing absolutely nothing, and now she's demanding three.... Tell her there's a war on and we all have to make some sacrifices."
   Released in June 1944, the film became a substantial success and grossed almost 5 million dollars in the United States. The critic James Agee praised aspects of the film, but particularly Colbert's performance, writing "Selznick has given Claudette Colbert the richest, biggest role of her career. She rewards him consistently with smooth Hollywood formula acting, and sometimes – in collaboration with Mr. (Joseph) Cotten – with flashes of acting that are warmer and more mature." Colbert received her final Academy Award nomination for this performance.
   In 1945, Colbert ended her association with Paramount Studios, and continued to free-lance in such films as Guest Wife (1945), with Don Ameche. RKO Studios hired her to appear opposite John Wayne in Without Reservations (1946), with a storyline and setting intentionally inspired by It Happened One Night, however it failed to recoup its high production costs. Nonetheless, the overall popularity of Colbert's films during 1946 led to her making a final appearance in the "Quigley Poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars". Her subsequent films failed to capitalize on her renewed success, with the exception of the suspense film Sleep, My Love (1948) with Robert Cummings. Colbert then lost two roles that were originally intended for her, and which were highly successful ventures for each of the actresses who replaced her. She was signed to appear in State of the Union with Gary Cooper, who was replaced by Spencer Tracy. Two days before filming began, Colbert advised the director Frank Capra that she was unable to work beyond 5 p.m. each day, citing "doctor's orders". Capra refused to accommodate her terms and cast Katharine Hepburn in the role.
   In 1949, Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote the part of Margo Channing in All About Eve for Colbert, feeling that she best represented the style of the older actress he envisioned for the part. Mankiewicz admired her "sly wit and sense of class" and felt that she'd play the part as an "elegant drunk", who would easily win the support of the audience. Colbert was enthusiastic about the role, and after a succession of noble roles, relished the prospect of playing what she described as a more "feline" character. Before production started, Colbert severely injured her back, while filming a scene for Three Came Home, and although 20th Century Fox postponed the production of All About Eve for two months while she convalesced, she was still not fit enough to take the role and was replaced by Bette Davis. Years later, Mankiewicz commented that he still imagined how effectively Colbert would have embodied the role, and how greatly her portrayal would have differed from Davis's. Colbert described her loss of the role as one of her great regrets, and said that she wished she could have played the role, even if it had been "in a wheelchair".
   Her films of this period received mixed reception. The RKO comedy Bride for Sale, in which Colbert was part of a love triangle that included George Brent and Robert Young, was well reviewed and modestly successful. The Secret Fury (1950), also for RKO, was a mystery melodrama that was widely panned, with one critic commenting that Colbert and her co-star Robert Ryan "wandered through the film like two abandoned children in search of their father".

Decline of film career

In the early 1950s, Colbert traveled to Europe and began making fewer films. In 1954, after a successful appearance in a television version of The Royal Family, she began acting in various teleplays. From 1954 to 1960, she appeared in the television adaptations of Blithe Spirit in 1956 and The Bells of St. Mary's in 1959. She also guest starred on Robert Montgomery Presents, Playhouse 90, and Zane Grey Theater.
   In 1958, she returned to Broadway in The Marriage-Go-Round, for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Tony Award.
   By 1955 she'd stopped making films, although returned to the screen in Parrish (1961) for Warner Brothers. When the film was released, most of the studio publicity was in support of the young male lead Troy Donahue, who was being groomed by the studio. Colbert, playing the supporting role of Donahue's mother, received little attention, and the film wasn't a success. She never made another film although the press occasionally referred to upcoming projects that didn't exist. Embarrassed, Colbert instructed her agent to stop his attempts to generate interest in her as a film actress. In the late 1960s, a reporter asked her why she'd made no more films, to which she replied, "Because there have been no offers."
   Her occasional acting ventures were limited to theater and included The Irregular Verb to Love (1963); The Kingfisher (1978) in which she co-starred with Rex Harrison, and Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All? (1985).
   In 1987, Colbert appeared in a supporting role in the television miniseries The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. The production was a ratings success and was nominated for several awards. Colbert won a Golden Globe and received a nomination for an Emmy Award. This marked her final performance on film, however she continued to act in theater.

Personal life

In 1928, Colbert married Norman Foster, an actor and director, who appeared with Colbert in the Broadway show The Barker. However, she and her first husband lived apart, never sharing a home together in Hollywood. They divorced in 1935, and in December of that year, Colbert married Dr. Joel Pressman, a surgeon at UCLA.

Final years

For years, Colbert divided her time between her apartment in Manhattan and her summer home in Speightstown, Barbados. Colbert left no immediate family.

Contemporary reception

Colbert established one of the most successful film careers of any actress of her generation, and was considered a dependable and bankable star. Her status was reflected in her earnings as one of the best paid performers of the 1930s and 1940s. Colbert once commented that she'd sacrificed for the sake of her career.
   In discussing Colbert's career, her contemporaries confirmed her drive. Irene Dunne commented that she'd lacked Colbert's "terrifying ambition" and noted that if Colbert "finished work on a film on a Saturday, she'd be looking for a new project by Monday". Hedda Hopper wrote that Colbert placed her career "ahead of everything save possibly her marriage", and described her as the "smartest and canniest" of Hollywood actresses, with a strong sense of what was best for her, and a "deep rooted desire to be in shape, efficient and under control". Her fastidious attitude in this regard became well known, with Doris Day quoted as saying, "God wasted half a face on Claudette". During her heyday, film technicians described the right side of her face as "the dark side of the moon."
   Modern critics and film historians note that Colbert demonstrated versatility throughout her career, and played characters that ranged from vamps to housewives, and that encompassed screwball comedy and drama. The writer A. Scott Berg described Colbert as one of Paramount Studio's greatest assets as she'd "proved deft in all genres" and had "helped define femininity for her generation with her chic manner."
   She was praised for her sense of style and awareness of fashion, and she ensured throughout her career, that she was impeccably groomed and costumed. Such was the importance she placed upon costuming, that for the 1946 melodrama, Tomorrow is Forever, Jean Louis was hired to create eighteen changes of wardrobe for her.
   When she received a Kennedy Center Honor, her fashion sense was referred to with a quotation from Jeanie Basinger in The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers: "[Her] glamour is the sort that women attain for themselves by using their intelligence to create a timeless personal style." The writer A. Scott Berg described Colbert as one of Paramount Studio's greatest assets as she'd "proved deft in all genres" and had "helped define femininity for her generation with her chic manner."
   Colbert is cited as a leading female exponent of screwball comedy, along with such actresses as Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Rosalind Russell, Irene Dunne and Jean Arthur. In her comedy films, she invariably played shrewd and self reliant women, but unlike many of her contemporaries, Colbert rarely engaged in physical comedy, with her characters more likely to be observers and commentators.

Filmography

Awards and honors

Colbert was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for three films, It Happened One Night (1935), Private Worlds (1936), and Since You Went Away (1945), winning for It Happened One Night. In addition, she won a for her role in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1988), and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the same.
   In 1980, Colbert was awarded the Sarah Siddons Award for her theatre work. In 1984, Colbert was awarded the Gala Tribute award by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The same year, a building at the old Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York, where she'd made ten films in early career, was renamed in her honor. In 1985, Colbert was awarded the Special Awards by Drama Desk Award.
   In 1989, Colbert was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement. In 1990, Colbert was honored with the San Sebastián International Film Festival Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award.
   For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Claudette Colbert has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6812 Hollywood Blvd.

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