Claudette Colbert

Claudette Colbert (September 13, 1903 – July 30, 1996), born Lily Claudette Chauchoin, was a French-American performer who worked on stage and in film. She launched her professional career on Broadway in the late 1920s and moved into movies when sound films arrived. She started out with Paramount Pictures, enjoyed a run of hits, and later worked more often as a freelance actress. Colbert’s Mid-Atlantic accent, range, steady composure, aristocratic bearing, and skill at both light comedy and emotional drama made her one of the most popular stars of the 1930s and 1940s. She appeared in more than sixty movies, usually as the top-billed lead. She frequently acted alongside Fred MacMurray (seven films between 1935 and 1949) and Fredric March (four films between 1930 and 1933). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for *It Happened One Night* (1934) and received two other Oscar nominations, for *Private Worlds* (1935) and *Since You Went Away* (1944). Other standout films include *Midnight* (1939) and *The Palm Beach Story* (1942). By the mid-1950s, Colbert had moved from movies to television and stage work. She earned a Tony Award nomination for *The Marriage-Go-Round* in 1959. Her career slowed in the early 1960s, but she saw a revival in the theater during the mid-1970s and won a Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago stage work in 1980. Her television role in *The Two Mrs. Grenvilles* (1987) brought her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her the 12th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema. **Early life**

Émilie “Lily” Claudette Chauchoin was born in 1903 in Saint-Mandé, France, to Jeanne (who had British Channel Islands heritage) and Georges Chauchoin. Though christened Émilie, she was called Lily after the Jersey-born actress Lillie Langtry. Her mother had wanted to name her Lily, but the pastor mistakenly chose Émilie, so the family always used Lily. Her brother, Charles, was born in the Bailiwick of Jersey in 1898. Georges owned and ran a chain of more than eleven pastry and bonbon shops and was a major stockholder in an ink factory that suffered business setbacks. Colbert’s uncle lived in New York City. After financial troubles, Colbert, her family, her grandmother, and her aunt moved to Manhattan in 1906. Her legal name in the U.S. is registered as Lily Claudette Chauchoin. They lived in a fifth-floor walk-up on 53rd Street. Colbert later said she climbed those stairs constantly until she was 18. Georges worked as a minor official in the foreign department at First National City Bank. Each family member later became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Colbert grew up bilingual, learning Channel Island English from her grandmother before starting public school. She wanted to become a painter from the time she first held a pencil. Her mother, an opera fan with an excellent singing voice, and her aunt, a dressmaker, influenced her; inspired by her aunt, Colbert began sketching people’s fashion designs. She attended Washington Irving High School, known for its strong arts program. Her speech teacher, Alice Rostetter, encouraged her to audition for a play Rostetter had written. In 1921, at age 17, Colbert made her stage debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in revivals of Rostetter’s *The Widow’s Veil* and *Aria da Capo* by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Still, her interests leaned toward painting, fashion design, and commercial art. Intending to become a fashion designer, she studied at the Art Students League of New York, paying for her art education by working in a dress shop. After a party with writer Anne Morrison, Colbert was offered a bit part in Morrison’s play and appeared on Broadway in a small role in *The Wild Westcotts* (1923). She had used the name Claudette, instead of Lily, since high school; for her stage name, she added the maiden name Colbert, from her father’s grandmother, after her brother used the surname Wendling, borrowed from their maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Her father died in 1925. **Career**

**Beginnings, 1923–1928**

Between 1923 and 1927, Colbert joined a stock company run by Jessie Bonstelle and performed in a series of mostly short-lived shows in regional theaters in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Connecticut. Plays included *Leah Kleschna*, *We’ve Got to Have Money*, *The Cat Came Back*, *High Stakes*, and *The Marionette Man*, giving her experience in various genres. In 1924, English actor Leslie Howard met her, was impressed by her ability to speak with both Mid-Atlantic and British accents, and contacted producer Al Woods to cast her in Frederick Lonsdale’s *The Fake*, but she was replaced by Frieda Inescort before it opened. After signing a five-year contract with Woods, Colbert performed in eleven Broadway productions from 1925 to 1929, while still belonging to a stock company until 1927. During this period, she refused to be typecast, such as playing a French maid, and critics noted her composure and impressive presence. By 1925, she found success in the comedy *A Kiss in a Taxi*, which ran for 103 performances over two months. Columnists praised her unconventional beauty and her ability to captivate an audience. She earned acclaim again for *The Ghost Train* (1926, a thriller) and *The Pearl of Great Price* (also 1926). The following year, *The Barker*, in which she played a carnival snake charmer, ran for 221 performances on Broadway, and she repeated the role in London’s West End.