“Men don’t get smarter when they grow older. They just lose their hair.”
Claudette Colbert was born Émilie Chauchoin in France in 1903. In 1906, Claudette’s family emigrated to New York. Claudette studied at Washington Irving High School where her teacher encouraged her to audtion for a play she had written and Claudette made her stage debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in “The Widow’s Veil”, at the age of fifteeen. Claudette then attended the Art Students League of New York and worked in a variety of different jobs in order to pay her expenses. Claudette intended to become a fashion designer but after attending a party with the playwright Anne Morrison, she was offered a three-line role in Morrison’s new play. In 1923, Claudette appeared on Broadway in a small role in “The Wild Westcotts” which inspired her to pursue a career in theater.
Claudette left her studies to embark on a stage career in 1925 and adopted the name “Claudette Colbert” as her stage name as she had been using the name of Claudette since high school and Collette was her grandmother’s maiden name.
Colbert signed a five-year contract with producer Al Woods and from 1925 to 1929 played ingenue roles on Broadway. Claudette received critical acclaim for her role in “The Barker” (1927), which she reprised for the play’s run in London’s West End. Although Claudette’s next two plays were unsuccesful, 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 and Colbert didn’t make any more films for the next two years, although in 1928 she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. Claudette’s earliest films were produced in New York which enabled her to continue her stage career. Claudette’s first sound film was “The Hole in the Wall”(1929) co-starring fellow newcomer Edward G. Robinson. Colbert also starred in “The Lady Lies” in 1929 and both films were a success. While filming “The Lady Lies”, Claudette simultaneously appeared in the play “See Naples and Die” which was to be her final stage performance for 20 years.
Claudette starred in the French language film, “Mysterious Mr. Parkes” which was one of the few foreign language films to be widely screened in the United States and as a result of being bilingual in French and English, was also cast in “The Big Pond” opposite Maurice Chevalier who thought very highly of her. In 1930, Colbert appeared in “Manslaughter” opposite Fredric March and later starred in a further three films with him including “Honor Among Lovers”(1931) which did very well at the box-office. The same year, Claudette co-starred again with Maurice Chevalier in “The Simling Lieutenant” which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1933, Colbert renegotiated her contract with Paramount so that she could appear in films for other studios.
Claudette’s film career flourished in 1934 with three of the four films she made that year, “Cleopatra”, “Imitation of Life” and “It Happened One Night” in which she starred opposite Clark Gable, receiving nominations for Academy Awards for Best Picture. Despite Claudette’s intial reluctance to star in “It Happened One Night”, shewon the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and the film wad the first to sweep all five major Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.
Claudette’s success allowed her to renegotiate her contract, raising her salary and in 1935 and 1936 she was listed in the annual “Quigley Poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars”, 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. In 1936, Claudette signed a new contract with Paramount Pictures which required her to make seven films over a two-year period and which made her Hollywood’s highest paid actress. When this contract was renewed in 1938, Claudette was reported to be the highest paid performer in Hollywood, earning $426,924.
Claudette was now able to start assserting control over the manner in which she was portrayed and gained a reputation for being fastidious by refusing to be filed from her right side as she believed that she photographed better from the left. Claudette began to learn about lighting and cinematography and refused to begin filming until she was satisfied that she would be shown to her best advantage. Around this time, Claudette began to act for CBS’ popular Lux Radio Theater, where she made numerous appearances between 1935 and 1954. In 1940, Colbert turned down a seven-year contract which would have paid her $200,000 a year, as she had found that she could command a fee of $150,000 per film as a freelance artist. Colbert appointed her brother as her manager who secured her roles in prestigious films such as “Boom Town” (1940) with Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr. Claudette began to make a transition to more mature characters although was very sensitive about her age which led to a rift on the set of “So Proudly We Hail”(1943) with Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake when Paulette said that she preferred working with Veronica as they were closer in age. In 1944, David O. Selznick approached Claudette to play the lead role of the mother in “Since You Went Away” which she was reluctant to do at first but eventually agreed. The film became a huge success and grossed almost five million dollars in the United States and earned Claudette her final Academy Award nomination.
In 1945, Claudette ended her association with Paramonut Studios and continued to freelance in films such as “Guest Wife”(1945) opposite Don Ameche and the RKO Studios film “Without Reservations”(1946) opposite John Wayne. Colbert achieved her last great success opposite Fred MacMurray in the comedy “The Egg and I”(1947) which was one of the year’s biggest hits and was later acknowledged as the 12th most profitable American film of the 1940’s. With the exception of “Sleep, My Love” with Robert Cummings, her later films failed to capitalize on her renewed success. Colbert lost a much wanted role in “All About Eve” after injuring her back before filming started and although MGM postponed the production for two months while she convalesced, she was still not fit enough at the end of this period and they were forced to give it to Bette Davis, a loss which Claudette later described as one of her biggest regrets.
Claudette travelled to Europe in the 1950’s and began making fewer films, although she appeared in the French film, “Royal Affair in Versailles” which was one of only two films she made in her native country, which was a success at the local box-office. Claudette began acting in teleplays in 1954 after a successful appearance in a television version of “The Royal Family”. From 1954 to 1960, Claudette appeared in the television adaptations of “Blithe Spririt” and “The Bells of St. Mary’s”. Claudette returned to Broadway in 1958 to appear in The Marriage-Go-Round, for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Tony Award. Claudette appeared in her last film, “Parrish” in 1961 although the film was not a huge success and she received little attention for her role in it. Embarrassed by its failure, Colbert instructed her agent to stop looking for film roles for her and eventually Colbert stopped receiving film offers.
Claudette continued to appear on the stage occasionally, appearing in “The Kingfisher” (1978) with Rex Harrison, and Frederick Lonsdale’s Aren’t We All? (1985). Colbert’s final appearance on film was in 1987 when she appeared in the television miniseries, “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles” which was a resounding success and was nominated for several awards including a Golden Globe for Claudette and an Emmy nomination.
Claudette was married twice: to actor and director Norman Foster, although the couple neverl ived together and eventually divorced, and then to Dr. Joel Pressman, with whom she remained until his death in 1968. Claudette spent her final years between her apartments in Manhattan and Barbados and died in Barbados at the age of 92.
Claudette Colbert established one of the most successful film careers of any actress of her generation and was considered a dependable and bankable star which was reflected in her earnings as she was one of the best-paid actresses of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Colbert had the reputation of having “terrifying ambition” and that she placed her career ahead of everything, perhaps excepting her marriage and was reported, along with Joan Crawford, to have known more about cinema lighting than the experts. Along with Jean Arthur, Myrna Loy and other such actresses, Claudette is credited with being a leading female exponent of screwball comedy.
In 1989, Colbert was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement and a year later was honored with the San Sebastián International Film Festival Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award. Claudette Colbert has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
