HOLLYWOOD ACTRESS LORETTA YOUNG EXPIRED ON AUGUST 12,2000

HOLLYWOOD  ACTRESS LORETTA YOUNG EXPIRED ON AUGUST 12,2000

Loretta young was a child actor who became one of Hollywood's leading ladies in the 1930s and 1940s.

Synopsis

Loretta Young made the leap from child actor to one of Hollywood's leading ladies of the 1930s and 1940s, making close to 100 films with directors such as Frank Capra, Cecil B. DeMille and Orson Welles and A-list leading men like Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Tyrone Power. She won an Oscar for her role in The Farmer's Daughter and was one of the first female stars to command a six-figure salary.




Early Life

Actress. Born Gretchen Michaela Young, on January 6, 1913, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Young's parents separated when she was two years old, and she and her siblings moved with their mother to Hollywood, California, where their mother opened a boardinghouse. By the time she was four, Young had begun appearing as a child extra in silent films, often alongside her two older sisters. She attended a convent school, but returned to Hollywood at age 14 to sign a contract with First National Studio (the precursor of Warner Bros.), where studio executives gave her the professional name of Loretta.

Career Highlights

In the years to come, Young made a graceful transition from pretty child actor to one of Hollywood's foremost leading ladies of the 1930's and 1940's. She made close to 100 films, working with prominent directors such as Frank Capra (Platinum Blonde, 1931), Cecil B. DeMille (The Crusades, 1935), and Orson Welles (The Stranger, 1946), and A-list leading men like Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and Tyrone Power. Young won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the romantic comedy The Farmer's Daughter (1947); she earned a second Best Actress Oscar nomination for Come to the Stable (1949). She also starred in the Christmas classic The Bishop's Wife (1947), costarring Grant and David Niven. The strong-willed Young was one of the first female stars to command a six-figure salary.

Television Success

In 1953, Young announced her retirement from film. After completing her last movie, It Happens Every Thursday (1953), she never returned to the big screen. Instead, Young signed a contract with Proctor & Gamble and the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) to produce and star in her own dramatic anthology television series, The Loretta Young Show. The show ran for eight seasons from 1953 to 1961, making Young one of the first major Hollywood stars to build a successful career in the fledgling medium of television. She won the first of her three Emmy Awards in 1953, becoming the first actress to win both an Oscar and an Emmy.

Personal Life

Young also consistently made headlines for her personal life, beginning in 1930 when she eloped at age 17 with the much-older Grant Withers, her costar in the film The Second Story Murder (1930). Their marriage was annulled the following year. In 1940, Young married the television producer

Thomas H.A. Lewis, with whom she had two sons, Christopher and Peter. Young and Lewis divorced in 1969.

In 1994, Young's daughter, Judy Lewis who had been publicly presented since the 1930s as the actress' adopted child and had taken Young's second husband's name claimed in her autobiography, Uncommon Knowledge, that she was actually the daughter of Young and Clark Gable. Lewis claimed she was conceived during the making of The Call of the Wild (1935), in which Young and Gable (then married to his second wife, Ria Langham) costarred. Young refused to ever publicly confirm or deny her daughter's account during her lifetime, and the two were estranged for several months after the book's publication. (In a biography published after her death, Young admitted in an interview with the book's author that Gable was indeed the father of Judy Lewis.)

Later Years

After leaving show business altogether in 1963 to devote her time to Catholic charities, Young returned to the small screen in several television movies in the late 1980s. Her last major role was in Lady in the Corner, a 1989 television drama. In her later years, Young was increasingly reclusive, though she made occasional public appearances in support of her favorite charities. She lived in Palm Springs, California, with her third husband (since 1994), the Oscar-winning costume designer Jean Louis, until his death in 1997. Young died of ovarian cancer on August 12, 2000.

Filmography[edit]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1917	The Primrose Ring	Fairy	Lost; uncredited
1917	Sirens of the Sea	Child	as Gretchen Young
1919	The Only Way	Child on the operating table
1921	White and Unmarried	Child	uncredited
1921	The Sheik	Arab child	Extant; uncredited
1927	Naughty but Nice	Bit Part	uncredited; lost
1927	Her Wild Oat	Bit by Ping Pong Table	uncredited, extant
1928	The Whip Woman	The Girl	lost
1928	Laugh, Clown, Laugh	Simonetta	extant made at MGM
1928	The Magnificent Flirt	Denise Laverne	lost; (made at Paramount Pictures)
1928	The Head Man	Carol Watts	lost
1928	Scarlet Seas	Margaret Barbour	lost; Vitaphone track of music and effects survives
1929	Seven Footprints to Satan	One of Satan's victims	uncredited, extant
1929	The Squall	Irma	extant Library of Congress
1929	The Girl in the Glass Cage	Gladys Cosgrove	lost
1929	Fast Life	Patricia Mason Stratton	lost; Vitaphone soundtrack discs at UCLA Film and Television
1929	The Careless Age	Muriel	lost
1929	The Forward Pass	Patricia Carlyle	lost
1929	The Show of Shows		"Meet My Sister" number; extant Library of Congress
1930	Loose Ankles	Ann Harper Berry	extant Library of Congress
1930	The Man from Blankley's	Margery Seaton	lost; Vitaphone soundtrack discs at UCLA Film & Television
1930	Show Girl in Hollywood		uncredited, extant Library of Congress
1930	The Second Floor Mystery	Marion Ferguson	extant Library of Congress
1930	Road to Paradise	Mary Brennan/Margaret Waring	extant Library of Congress
1930	Warner Bros. Jubilee Dinner	Herself	short subject
1930	Kismet	Marsinah	lost; Vitaphone soundtrack discs at UCLA Film & Television
1930	War Nurse	Nurse	uncredited(Young's scenes deleted), extant made at MGM
1930	The Truth About Youth	Phyllis Ericson	extant Library of Congress
1930	The Devil to Pay!	Dorothy Hope	extant, produced by Samuel Goldwyn released by United Artists
1931	How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones No. 8: 'The Brassie'	Herself	short subject
1931	Beau Ideal	Isobel Brandon	extant(made at RKO)
1931	The Right of Way	Rosalie Evantural	extant Library of Congress
1931	The Stolen Jools	Herself	short subject
1931	Three Girls Lost	Norene McMann	extant
1931	Too Young to Marry	Elaine Bumpstead	extant Library of Congress
1931	Big Business Girl	Claie 'Mac' McIntyre	extant Library of Congress
1931	I Like Your Nerve	Diane Forsythe	extant Library of Congress
1931	The Ruling Voice	Gloria Bannister	extant Library of Congress
1931	Platinum Blonde	Gallagher
1932	Taxi!	Sue Riley Nolan	extant Library of Congress
1932	The Hatchet Man	Sun Toya San	original title The Honorable Mr. Wong; ... extant Library of Congress
1932	Play-Girl	Buster 'Bus' Green Dennis	extant Library of Congress
1932	Week-End Marriage	Lola Davis Hayes	extant Library of Congress
1932	Life Begins	Grace Sutton	extant Library of Congress
1932	They Call It Sin	Marion Cullen	[28] extant Library of Congress
1933	Employees' Entrance	Madeleine Walters West	extant Library of Congress
1933	Grand Slam	Marcia Stanislavsky	extant Library of Congress
1933	Zoo in Budapest	Eve	extant
1933	The Life of Jimmy Dolan	Peggy	extant Library of Congress
1933	Heroes for Sale	Ruth Loring Holmes	extant Library of Congress
1933	Midnight Mary	Mary Martin
1933	She Had to Say Yes	Florence 'Flo' Denny	extant Library of Congress
1933	The Devil's in Love	Margot Lesesne	extant
1933	Man's Castle	Trina	extant
1934	The House of Rothschild	Julie Rothschild
1934	Born to Be Bad	Letty Strong
1934	Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back	Lola Field
1934	Caravan	Countess Wilma
1934	The White Parade	June Arden
1935	Clive of India	Margaret Maskelyne Clive
1935	Shanghai	Barbara Howard
1935	The Call of the Wild	Claire Blake
1935	The Crusades	Berengaria, Princess of Navarre
1935	Hollywood Extra Girl	Herself	short subject
1936	The Unguarded Hour	Lady Helen Dudley Dearden
1936	Private Number	Ellen Neal
1936	Ramona	Ramona
1936	Ladies in Love	Susie Schmidt
1937	Love Is News	Toni Gateson
1937	Café Metropole	Laura Ridgeway
1937	Love Under Fire	Myra Cooper
1937	Wife, Doctor and Nurse	Ina Heath Lewis
1937	Second Honeymoon	Vicky
1938	Four Men and a Prayer	Miss Lynn Cherrington
1938	Three Blind Mice	Pamela Charters
1938	Suez	Countess Eugenie de Montijo
1938	Kentucky	Sally Goodwin
1939	Wife, Husband and Friend	Doris Borland
1939	The Story of Alexander Graham Bell	Mrs. Mabel Hubbard Bell
1939	Eternally Yours	Anita
1940	The Doctor Takes a Wife	June Cameron
1940	He Stayed for Breakfast	Marianna Duval
1941	The Lady from Cheyenne	Annie Morgan
1941	The Men in Her Life	Lina Varsavina
1941	Bedtime Story	Jane Drake
1942	A Night to Remember	Nancy Troy
1943	China	Carolyn Grant
1943	Show Business at War	Herself	short subject
1944	Ladies Courageous	Roberta Harper	Famously "a clef" biopic of the WWII WASPs - pioneering lady pilots
1944	And Now Tomorrow	Emily Blair
1945	Along Came Jones	Cherry de Longpre
1946	The Stranger	Mary Longstreet
1947	The Perfect Marriage	Maggie Williams
1947	The Farmer's Daughter	Katrin 'Katy' Holstrum	Academy Award for Best Actress
1947	The Bishop's Wife	Julia Brougham
1948	Rachel and the Stranger	Rachel Harvey
1949	The Accused	Dr. Wilma Tuttle
1949	Mother Is a Freshman	Abigail Fortitude Abbott
1949	Come to the Stable	Sister Margaret	Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actress
1950	Key to the City	Clarissa Standish
1951	You Can Change the World	Herself	short subject
1951	Cause for Alarm!	Ellen Jones
1951	Half Angel	Nora Gilpin
1951	Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Awards	Herself	short subject
1952	Paula	Paula Rogers
1952	Because of You	Christine Carroll Kimberly
1953	It Happens Every Thursday	Jane MacAvoy
1986	Christmas Eve	Amanda Kingsley
1989	Lady In The Corner	Grace Guthrie
1994	Life Along the Mississippi	Narrator (voice)

Radio appearances[edit]

Year	Program	Episode/source
1940	The Campbell Playhouse	Theodora Goes Wild[29]
1945	Cavalcade of America	Children, This Is Your Father[29]
1947	Family Theater	"Flight from Home"[29]
1950	Suspense	"Lady Killer"[29]
1952	Lux Radio Theatre	"Come to the Stable"[30]
1952	Family Theater	"Heritage of Home"[31]