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| Birth Name(s) : Lily Claudette Chauchoin |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
Norman Foster (1928-1935) |
| Profession:
N/A |
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Full Claudette Colbert Biography
She was born Lily Claudette Chauchoin in Paris to Jeanne Loew (d. 1970) and Georges Claude Chauchoin (1867-1925), a banker and diplomat. Her family emigrated to the United States when she was three years old and settled in New York City three years later, when her father encountered financial setbacks. Colbert was made a naturalized citizen of the U.S.
After high school graduation, she attended the Art Students League of New York and worked as a stenographer, a dress shop employee, 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). Colbert embarked on a stage career in 1925. She had used the name Claudette instead of Lily in high school, and for her stage name she added her paternal grandmother's maiden name, Colbert.
She would make a total of four films with Fredric March, including Dorothy Arzner's Honor Among Lovers (1931), which fared well at the box-office.
On loan out to Columbia Pictures, she achieved redemption and further acclaim in her most famous role as Ellie Andrews in It Happened One Night (1934). This film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and she was selected for Best Actress.
From 1952 to 1954, she traveled to Europe and made fewer films. She stopped making motion pictures by the middle of that decade. Her last starring film role was in the 1961 melodrama, Parrish.
During her career, Colbert appeared in more than sixty films. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6812 Hollywood Blvd.
In 1954, Colbert made a deal with CBS to star in five teleplays after a successful appearance in The Royal Family. From 1954 to 1960, she appeared in a number of programs (among them, 1956's Blithe Spirit and 1959's The Bells of St. Mary's). She would not appear on television for another 25 years.
She returned to Broadway in 1956 in Janus. In 1958, she appeared in the long-running The Marriage-Go-Round. Her other theatrical appearances included The Irregular Verb to Love (1963), The Kingfisher (1979) in which she co-starred with Rex Harrison, and Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All? (1985) in which she co-starred again with Harrison, first in London and then on Broadway.
She was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play (Dramatic) in 1959 for The Marriage-Go-Round, and she won the 1980 Sarah Siddons Award for Best Actress for The Kingfisher for the season 1979-80.
In 1987, she returned to TV in the miniseries, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Mini-series or a Special. In 1988, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for TV.
Colbert married twice. Her first husband was Norman Foster, an actor and later director, whom she married in 1928. They divorced in 1935. Four months after her divorce, she married Joel Jay Pressman (1901-1968), a Los Angeles surgeon. She had no children.
She suffered a stroke in 1994 and never fully recovered; it curtailed her daily swims and speedboat rides. In 1996 she died at her vacation home in Speightstown, Barbados at the age of 92. Her permanent address was Manhattan.
Most of her estate was left to a friend, Helen O'Hagan (1931—), a retired director of corporate relations at Saks Fifth Avenue, whom Colbert had met in 1961 on the set of the actress's last film.
Colbert disliked starring in It Happened One Night (1934). Director Frank Capra fired off quite a few complaints about her in his autobiography.in the film The Sign of the Cross (1932)
Producer David O. Selznick had been impressed by her performance in So Proudly We Hail! (1943) as well as her box-office clout, commenting that "even light little comedies with her have never done under a million and a half." He wrote in a memo that they had rebuilt several sets of Since You Went Away (1944) "because of her refusal to have the right side of her face photographed, on top of which we have 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." The film grossed almost five million dollars in the U.S. The critic, James Agee, commented that it was the "richest, biggest role of her career." He also wrote that she demonstrated "smooth Hollywood formula acting, and sometimes flashes of acting that are warmer and more mature." Director John Cromwell later noted that Colbert was "level headed, very professional and with no temperament."
By the time Joseph L. Mankiewicz began working on a screenplay of All About Eve (1950), he had decided on Colbert for the lead female role, as she represented the style of actress that he envisioned for the part. He admired her "sly wit and sense of class". He predicted that she would play the role elegantly, and would easily win public favor. But she had to withdraw after severely injuring her back. |
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