Claudette Colbert begans her film career in New York's Astoria studios of Paramount and turned the top of the 30s often the French versions of studio productions, a standard practice at that time. Overall, they spent the 15 years the studio contractually linked.

With her role in The Smiling Lieutenant alongside Maurice Chevalier, she had directed by Ernst Lubitsch's first success. She completed later in colorful performances in order tearful melodramas, comedies and as a historical figure in the epic film. Cecil B. DeMille in 1932 took one as a lecherous Popea alongside Charles Laughton and Fredric March in the martyr-drama The Sign of the Cross. The director was so impressed by the actress that he still committed a few more times for his films, particularly spectacular as Cleopatra in the eponymous film of 1934.

That same year, Colbert had that been one busy actress of medium popularity was their breakthrough. After having her at Columbia Pictures, with $ 50,000.00 more than twice their previous salary, and paid her a termination of the shooting had been promised in three weeks, she has also starred in Frank Capra comedy It Happened One Night, having established any other actress in Hollywood the offer was rejected, Constance Bennett, Miriam Hopkins and Margaret Sullavan. The male lead went to Clark Gable, who was personally punished by studio chief Louis B. Mayer and MGM to the then second-class Columbia Pictures has been borrowed. The strip was developed after a moderate start to one of the greatest successes of the year. Colbert and Gable each won Oscars as best actor.

Colbert shot later in the year for Universal Pictures, the tearful melodrama to racial prejudice and a mother's love Imitation of Life, directed by John M. Stahl, with whom she had another hit at the box office. Paramount gave her after returning to the studio a large wardrobe and meaningful roles in successful comedies such as The Bride Comes Home, The Gilded Lily and Private Worlds, a drama about a psychiatrist with Charles Boyer, Joel McCrea and Frances Dee, the actress Oscar nomination for 1935, a earned. Following The Gilded Lily, the actress turned together with Fred MacMurray and 1949 a total of 14 films and the two vied with William Powell and Myrna Loy for the title of the perfect screen couple.

1936 Colbert has already earned $ 306,000.00 and was the highest paid female movie star of the country.

After occasional forays into dramatic roles, such as a 1937 were accused of witchcraft in Puritan Maid of Salem, the less appreciated by the audience, Colbert has focused on light comedy. These included classics such as Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, Midnight - Unveiling at midnight, The Palm Beach Story, Practically Yours and Guest Wife. Mid-forties, her career reached its climax. Your salary per movie was $ 250,000.00 and made it one of the highest paid actor in Hollywood.

The strip So Proudly We Hail, presented in 1943 as a nurse, has suffered the terrible agony among the Japanese after the fall of Bataan on. Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake played minor roles. A year later she was Took a langleidende warrior woman in the Heimatfrontepos When you leave, one of David O. To see Selznick production, which einspielte nearly 5.5 million U.S. dollars. The Secret Heart, 1946, the strip was successful, showing the Colbert as a widow with a broken heart. After the success of The Egg and I, who came in 1947 in the distribution and the co-stars Marjorie Main and Percy Kilby as Ma and Pa Kettle own spin-off brought in with a number of films that ran the career of the actress, but surprisingly quickly in mediocrity . In 1948 she turned down the lead role in the film version of Broadwayerfolges State of the Union, because the studio did not want to give four days in the month of additional paid vacation. Katharine Hepburn took the role. In 1950, she was the first choice for the lead role in All About Eve, but she sprained in a fall a vertebra and was replaced at the end, Bette Davis.

The last few years, the actress spent a large luxury on the Caribbean island of Barbados, where she owned a villa in splendid position. Colbert is alleged to have been the intervention of President Ronald Reagan, the reason for the American invasion of the neighboring island of Grenada, when Communists took over where the regiment.

The actress was known to show only their side of the face in profile shots, which led to some expensive renovations on the sets. In addition to Greta Garbo Colbert was the actress insisted on rigorous adherence to the contractually agreed working hours: they never turned after 17:00 clock and turned no close-ups in the afternoon.
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