Profile of Paulette Goddard on Famous Like Me

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Paulette Goddard (born Pauline Marion Levy on June 3, unknown -April 23, 1990) was an American actress. A former child model and Ziegfield Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. Her exceptional beauty and fame led to several marriages to notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque, although she never had any children.

Early life and career

Goddard was born an only child in Whitestone Landing, New York to a Jewish father and an Episcopalian mother. She became a fashion model as a teenager, and a member of the Ziegfeld Follies at the age of 13 in 1924. Her stage debut was in the Ziegfeld revue production No Foolin' in 1926. The next year she made her stage acting debut in The Unconquerable Male. She married the Broadway writer Edgar James in 1926 or 1927, but divorced him in 1930.

In 1929 she went to Hollywood after signing a contract with Roach Studios, and appeared in small parts of several films over the next few years, including roles as an uncredited extra in Chaplin's City Lights and Eddie Cantor's Kid Millions. She also joined other such notables as Betty Grable, Jeanne Gray, and Jane Wyman as Goldwyn Girls with Cantor in The Kid from Spain.

In 1932, she met Charlie Chaplin, and began an eight year personal and cinematic relationship with him. Chaplin bought Goddard's contract from Roach Studios and cast her as a street urchin opposite his Tramp character in the 1936 film Modern Times, which made Goddard a star. During this time she lived with Chaplin in his Beverly Hills home. Their marital status was and has remained a source of controversy and speculation; Chaplin stated in his 1961 autobiography that they were married in China in 1936, but in private he claimed that they were never married, except on a common-law basis. Regardless, they were amicably divorced in 1942, and Chaplin agreed to a generous divorce settlement.

Goddard began gaining star status after appearing in The Young In Heart (1938), Dramatic School (1938), and a strong supporting role in The Women (1939), with Rosalind Russell. During filming of The Women Goddard was considered as a finalist for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, but after several auditions lost the part to Vivien Leigh (legend has it the ambiguity of her marital status to Chaplin was a factor in this decision.) However, in 1939 Goddard signed a contract with Paramount pictures and her next film The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, was a decisive turning point in the careers of both actors.

Paramount pictures

She starred with Chaplin again in his 1940 film The Great Dictator . She also made three comedies with Bob Hope: The Cat And The Canary, The Ghost Breakers, and Nothing But The Truth. She also starred in Hold Back the Dawn, three Cecil B. DeMille epics, North West Mounted Police, Reap the Wild Wind and Unconquered, and The Diary of a Chambermaid with Burgess Meredith, whom she eventually married and divorced. She was often paired with leading men at Paramount such as Ray Milland (in Reap the Wild Wind, Kitty, The Lady Has Plans and The Crystal Ball) and Fred MacMurray (in Standing Room Only, Suddenly It's Spring, and The Forest Rangers.)

She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1944 for So Proudly We Hail!, and had some successful roles after that, but her career faded in the late 1940s. In 1949 she formed Monterey pictures with John Steinbeck. Her last starring roles were the English production A Stranger Came Home (known as The Unholy Four in the USA), and Charge of the Lancers in 1954. In 1964 she made a comeback attempt in films with a supporting role in the Italian film Time of Indifference.

Later life

Goddard was married to actor Burgess Meredith from 1944 to 1949. In 1958 she married All Quiet on the Western Front author Erich Maria Remarque. They remained married until his death in 1970. Goddard settled in Ronco, Switzerland, where she died following a short battle with emphysema (she was also a breast cancer survivor). In her will, she left $20,000,000 (USD) to New York University (NYU), due to her friendship with Indiana-born politician and former NYU President John Brademas. Goddard Hall, an NYU freshman residence hall on Washington Square, is named for her.

There has been much speculation as to Goddard's age. The late actress Claire Trevor, whom was born in 1910 and went to high school with her, claimed that Goddard was a year older than herself. If true, this would place Goddard's year of birth at 1909.

However, 1910 is the year inscribed on her gravestone in Ronco cemetery in Switzerland, while Swiss authorities document her birthyear, probably taken from a passport, as 1905. Various other sources also list her birthyear as 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913 or 1914, and 1915. Ziegfeld lists Goddard's birthyear as both 1911 and 1913, but this same source also seems to confuse her age at the time of her stage debut with Ziegfeld, stating her age as 13 when she appeared in No Foolin in 1926, overlooking that she became a member of the Follies in 1924. Further discrepancies may also be the result of sources giving conflicting information as to Goddard's birthyear on birth certificates, passports, and other legal documents, as well as Goddard's tendency to conceal her age. In her earlier work Goddard was sometimes credited as Marian Levy, and only began using Goddard in subsequent productions.

She is buried in Ronco cemetery in Switzerland, where her late husband, Erich Maria Remarque, is also buried.

Filmography

• Berth Marks (1929) (short subject)
• The Locked Door (1929)
• City Streets (1931)
• The Girl Habit (1931)
• Hollywood on Parade (1932) (short subject)
• The Mouthpiece (1932)
• Show Business (1932) (short subject)
• Young Ironsides (1932) (short subject)
• Pack Up Your Troubles (1932)
• Girl Grief (1932) (short subject)
• The Kid from Spain (1932)
• Roman Scandals (1933)
• Kid Millions (1934)
• Modern Times (1936)
• The Bohemian Girl (1936)
• The Young in Heart (1938)
• Dramatic School (1938)
• The Women (1939)
• The Cat and the Canary (1939)
• The Ghost Breakers (1940)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• North West Mounted Police (1940)
• Second Chorus (1940)
• Pot o' Gold (1941)
• Hold Back the Dawn (1941)
• Nothing But the Truth (1941)
• The Lady Has Plans (1942)
• Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
• The Forest Rangers (1942)
• Star Spangled Rhythm (1942)
• The Crystal Ball (1943)
• So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
• Standing Room Only (1944)
• I Love a Soldier (1944)
• Duffy's Tavern (1945) (Cameo)
• Kitty (1945)
• The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) (also producer)
• Suddenly, It's Spring (1947)
• Variety Girl (1947) (Cameo)
• Unconquered (1947)
• An Ideal Husband (1947)
• On Our Merry Way (1948)
• Hazard (1948)
• Bride of Vengeance (1949)
• A Yank Comes Back (1949) (short subject)
• Anna Lucasta (1949)
• The Torch (1950) (also associate producer)
• Babes in Bagdad (1952)
• Vice Squad (1953)
• Sins of Jezebel (1953)
• Paris Model (1953)
• Charge of the Lancers (1954)
• A Stranger Came Home aka The Unholy Four (USA) (1954)
• Time of Indifference (1964)

External link

• Paulette Goddard at Classic Actresses
• Paulette Goddard at the Internet Movie Database

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