Loretta Young

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Loretta Young (born Gretchen Young; January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an American actress. Starting as a child, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953. She received numerous honors including an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards as well as two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in film and television.

She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film The Farmer's Daughter (1947), and received her second Academy Award nomination for her role in Come to the Stable (1949). She also starred in films such as Born to Be Bad (1934), Call of the Wild (1935), The Crusades (1935), Eternally Yours (1939), The Stranger (1946), The Bishop's Wife (1947), and Key to the City (1950).

Young moved to the relatively new medium of television, where she had a dramatic anthology series, The Loretta Young Show, from 1953 to 1961. It earned three Primetime Emmy Awards, and was re-run successfully on daytime TV and later in syndication. She also starred in The New Loretta Young Show from 1962 to 1963. Young returned to the small screen in the 1980s starring in two NBC television movies, Christmas Eve (1986), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film, and Lady in a Corner (1989).

Early life and education

She was born Gretchen Young in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of Gladys (née Royal) and John Earle Young.^[1][2] She was of Luxembourgish descent.^[3] When she was two years old, her parents separated, and when she was three, her mother moved the family to Hollywood. A priest helped Gladys to establish a boarding house as income. Gladys’ sister's husband helped the little girls get small parts in silent films for income. Gladys met Ida Botiller Lindley, a very wealthy widow, by 1925. Ida had no children, but wanted to carry on her husband's name; she proposed that she adopt Gretchen's brother John Royal Young, educating him to be a lawyer like her late husband. Thus, John Young became John R. Lindley, and he became a lawyer. Gretchen and her sisters, Polly Ann and Elizabeth Jane (better known as Sally Blane), all worked as child actresses, but of the three, Gretchen was the most successful. Polly, Sally and John Royal Young Lindley all died in 1997, in their 80s.^{[citation needed]} John's son David Lindley became a well-known multi-instrumentalist rock musician.^[4]

Young's first role was at the age of two or three in the silent film Sweet Kitty Bellairs. During her high-school years she was educated at Ramona Convent Secondary School. She was signed to a contract by John McCormick, husband and manager of actress Colleen Moore, who saw the young girl's potential.^{[5][failed verification]} Moore gave her the name Loretta, explaining that it was the name of her favorite doll.^[6]

Career

1919–1939: Film debut and early films

Young was billed as Gretchen Young in the silent film Sirens of the Sea (1917). She was first billed as Loretta Young in 1928, in The Whip Woman. That same year, she co-starred with Lon Chaney in the MGM film Laugh, Clown, Laugh. The next year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.^[7] In 1930, when she was 17, she eloped with 26-year-old actor Grant Withers; they were married in Yuma, Arizona. The marriage was annulled the next year, just as their second movie together (coincidentally entitled Too Young to Marry) was released.

In 1934, she co-starred with Cary Grant in the pre-Code drama Born to be Bad released by Twentieth Century Pictures. This film was rejected by the Hays Office twice before it was finally approved. The next year Young starred opposite Clark Gable and Jack Oakie in the 1935 film adaptation of Jack London's action adventure novel The Call of the Wild, directed by William Wellman. Also in 1935 she portrayed Berengaria, Princess of Navarre in the Cecil B. DeMille directed historical epic The Crusades (1935). The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it received an award for Best Foreign Film.

The following year she starred as Lady Helen Dudley Dearden in The Unguarded Hour (1936). The film was directed by Sam Wood and was based on the 1935 play of the same name by Bernard Merivale. In 1938 she played Countess Eugenie de Montijo in the romantic drama Suez starring opposite Tyrone Power. The film was directed by Allan Dwan and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck.

1940–1952: Career breakthrough

During World War II, Young made Ladies Courageous (1944; re-issued as Fury in the Sky), the fictionalized story of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. It depicted a unit of female pilots who flew bomber planes from the factories to their final destinations. Young made as many as eight movies a year, and her films in the 1940s were among the most prestigious and well-remembered of her career.

In 1946, Young made The Stranger, in which she plays a small-town American woman who unknowingly marries a Nazi fugitive (Orson Welles). Welles recalled that the film's producer ordered a close-up of Young during a pivotal scene, a choice that Welles, who directed, considered "fatal" to the scene's impact. Young took the director's side, even getting her agent on the phone to take Welles's side. "Imagine getting a star's agent in to ensure that she wouldn't get a closeup!" Welles later said. "She was wonderful."^[8] Critic Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post noted, "The languorous Miss Young has the toughest assignment, being called on to shift from the starry-eyed bride of the early reels to the woman who must know in her heart that her husband is one of the most hated of men."^[9]

In 1947, Young won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Farmer's Daughter, a political comedy that required her to learn a Swedish accent. Ruth Roberts, who had coached Ingrid Bergman on how to lose her Swedish accent, taught Young how to gain one.^[10] That same year, she co-starred with Cary Grant and David Niven in the romantic comedy The Bishop's Wife, a perennial favorite, which was remade in 1996 as The Preacher's Wife, starring Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston and Courtney B. Vance. In 1949, she received another Academy Award nomination for her role as Sister Margaret in the comedy drama Come to the Stable. In 1953, she appeared in her last theatrical film, It Happens Every Thursday, a Universal comedy about a New York couple who move to California to take over a struggling weekly newspaper; her co-star was John Forsythe.

In 1950 she reunited with Clark Gable for the romantic comedy Key to the City. During production of the film, Gable visited the Young household and spoke with his, and Young's, natural daughter, Judy Lewis, for the only time in Lewis' life. Lewis was fifteen at the time and did not know of Gable's role in her conception. The next year she starred in the melodrama Cause for Alarm! (1951) and the comedy Half Angel (1951), followed by Columbia Pictures' film noir Paula (1952). Also in 1952 she starred in the romance drama Because of You from Universal Pictures.

1953–1961: Television stardom

Young hosted and starred in the well-received half-hour anthology television series Letter to Loretta (soon retitled The Loretta Young Show), which was originally broadcast from 1953 to 1961. She earned three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for the program. Her trademark was a dramatic entrance through a living room door in various high-fashion evening gowns. She returned at the program's conclusion to offer a brief passage from the Bible or a famous quote that reflected upon the evening's story. (Young's introductions and concluding remarks were not re-run on television because she legally stipulated that they not be, as she did not want the dresses she wore in those segments to make the program seem dated.)

The program ran in prime time on NBC for eight years, the longest-running primetime network program hosted by a woman up to that time.^[11] The program was based on the premise that each drama was an answer to a question asked in her fan mail. The title was changed to The Loretta Young Show during the first season (as of the episode of February 14, 1954), and the "letter" concept was dropped at the end of the second season. Toward the end of the second season, Young was hospitalized as a result of overwork, which required a number of guest hosts and guest stars; her first appearance in the 1955–1956 season was for the Christmas show. From then on, Young appeared in only about half of each season's shows as an actress, and served as the program's host for the remainder.

Minus Young's introductions and conclusions, the series was re-run as the Loretta Young Theatre in daytime by NBC from 1960 to 1964. It also appeared in syndication into the early 1970s, before being withdrawn. In 1972, a jury in Los Angeles awarded Young $550,000 in a lawsuit against NBC for breach of contract. Filed in 1966, the suit contended that NBC had allowed foreign television outlets to re-run old episodes of The Loretta Young Show, without excluding, as agreed by the parties, the opening segment in which Young made her entrance. Young testified that her image had been damaged by portraying her in "outdated gowns". She had sought damages of $1.9 million.^[12]

1986–1994: Return to acting and final roles

Young briefly came out of retirement to star the NBC television film Christmas Eve (1986). The story revolves around an elderly woman played by Young who befriends the homeless and volunteers her time with children, who learns she has an incurable illness and wants desperately to reunite her three grown grand children. Young starred alongside Trevor Howard and Ron Leibman, all three of whom received Golden Globe Award nominations with Young winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. She then starred in her final role, another NBC television film, Lady in a Corner (1989) starring as the editor-in-chief of a high fashion magazine. She starred opposite Brian Keith, Roscoe Lee Brown, and Bruce Davison. For her performance she received another Golden Globe Award nomination in the same category losing to Christine Lahti in the CBS film No Place Like Home.

Personal life

Marriages

Young was married three times and had three children. Her first marriage was to actor Grant Withers in 1930. The marriage was annulled the following year.^[13] From September 1933 to June 1934, she had a well-publicized affair with actor Spencer Tracy (who was married to Louise Tracy), her co-star in Man's Castle.^[14] In 1940, Young married producer Tom Lewis. They had two sons: Peter Lewis (of the San Francisco rock band Moby Grape); and Christopher Lewis, a film director. Young and Lewis divorced in 1969.

In 1993, Young married for the third and final time, to the fashion designer Jean Louis. Their marriage lasted until his death in April 1997. Young was godmother to Marlo Thomas (daughter of TV star Danny Thomas).^[15]

A smoker since the age of eight,^[16] a then underweight Young quit the habit in the mid-1980s and regained 10 pounds.^[17]

Judy Lewis

Young and Clark Gable were the romantic leads of the 1935 Twentieth Century Pictures film The Call of the Wild. Young was then 22 years old; Gable was 34 and married to Maria “Ria” Langham. During filming, Young became pregnant by Gable.^[18]

Young did not want to damage her career or Gable's. She knew that if Twentieth Century Pictures found out about the pregnancy, they would pressure her to have an abortion; Young, a devout Catholic, considered abortion a mortal sin. Young, her sisters, and her mother devised a plan to conceal the pregnancy and then pass off the child as adopted.^[19] When Young's pregnancy began to advance, she went on a "vacation" to England. After returning to California, she gave an interview from her bed, covered in blankets; at that time, she stated that her long movie absence was due to a condition she had had since childhood. Young gave birth to a daughter, Judith, on November 6, 1935, in Venice, California. Young named Judith after St. Jude because he was the patron saint of (among other things) difficult situations.^[19] Weeks after her birth, Judith was placed in an orphanage. Judith spent the next 19 months in various "hideaways and orphanages" before being re-united with her mother; Young then claimed that she had adopted Judith. After Young married Tom Lewis, Judith took Lewis's last name.^[20]

Few in Hollywood were fooled by the ruse. Judith (Judy) Lewis bore a strong resemblance to Gable,^[21] and her true parentage was widely rumored in entertainment circles. When Lewis was 31 years old, she confronted Young about her parentage;^[20] Young privately admitted that she was Lewis's birth mother, stating that Lewis was "a walking mortal sin".^[22] Young refused to confirm or comment publicly on the rumors until 1999, when Joan Wester Anderson wrote Young's authorized biography. In interviews with Anderson for the book, Young stated that Lewis was her biological child and the product of a brief affair with Gable.^[23] Young would not allow the book to be published until after her death.^[20]

In 2015, Linda Lewis, the wife of Young's son, Christopher, stated publicly that in 1998, a then-85-year-old Young had told Lewis that Gable had raped her. According to Linda Lewis, Young added that no consensual intimate contact had occurred between Gable and herself.^[19] Young had never disclosed the rape to anyone. Lewis stated that Young shared this information only after learning of the concept of date rape from watching Larry King Live; she had previously believed it was a woman's job to fend off men's amorous advances and had perceived her inability to thwart Gable's attack as a moral failing on her part. Linda Lewis said that the family remained silent about Young's rape claim until after both Young and Judy Lewis had died.^[19]

Young and Gable starred together in Key to the City in 1950, when Lewis was 15 years old. At this time, Gable visited the Young household and spoke to Lewis for the only time in her life.^[24]

Politics

Young was a life-long Republican.^[25] In 1952, she appeared in radio, print, and magazine ads in support of Dwight D. Eisenhower in his campaign for US president. She attended his inauguration in 1953, along with Anita Louise, Louella Parsons, Jane Russell, Dick Powell, June Allyson, and Lou Costello, among others. She was a vocal supporter of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in their presidential campaigns in 1968 and 1980, respectively.^[25] Young was also an active member of the Hollywood Republican Committee, with her close friends Irene Dunne, Ginger Rogers, William Holden, George Murphy, Fred Astaire, and John Wayne.^[26]

Charity

From the time of Young's retirement in the 1960s until not long before her death, she devoted herself to volunteer work for charities and churches, together with her friends of many years: Jane Wyman, Irene Dunne, and Rosalind Russell.^[27] She was a member of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California.^[28] Young, a devout Catholic,^[29][30] also worked with various Catholic charities after her acting career.^[29][31]

Illness and death

Young died of ovarian cancer on August 12, 2000, at the home of her maternal half-sister, Georgiana Young^[32] (the wife of actor Ricardo Montalbán) in Los Angeles, California. She was interred in the family plot in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Her ashes were buried in the grave of her mother, Gladys Belzer.^[33]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1916	Sweet Kitty Bellairs	unknown	Lost; uncredited
1917	The Primrose Ring	Fairy	Lost; uncredited
1917	Sirens of the Sea	Child	As Gretchen Young
1919	The Only Way	Child on operating table
1921	White and Unmarried	Child	Uncredited
1921	The Sheik	Arab child	Extant; uncredited
1927	Naughty But Nice	Bit part	Extant; uncredited
1927	Her Wild Oat	Bit by ping pong table	Extant; uncredited
1927	Orchids and Ermine	unknown	Extant; uncredited
1928	The Whip Woman	The Girl	Lost
1928	Laugh, Clown, Laugh	Simonetta	Extant; made at MGM
1928	The Magnificent Flirt	Denise Laverne	Lost; made at Paramount Pictures
1928	The Head Man	Carol Watts	Lost
1928	Scarlet Seas	Margaret Barbour	Extant (Vitaphone track of music and effects survives). Picture elements discovered at Cineteca Italiana, Milan
1929	Seven Footprints to Satan	One of Satan's victims	Extant; uncredited
1929	The Squall	Irma	Extant, in Library of Congress
1929	The Girl in the Glass Cage	Gladys Cosgrove	Lost
1929	Fast Life	Patricia Mason Stratton	Lost (Vitaphone soundtrack discs at UCLA Film and Television)
1929	The Careless Age	Muriel	Lost
1929	The Forward Pass	Patricia Carlyle	Lost
1929	The Show of Shows	"Meet My Sister" number	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	Loose Ankles	Ann Harper Berry	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	The Man from Blankley's	Margery Seaton	Lost (Vitaphone soundtrack discs at UCLA Film and Television)
1930	Showgirl in Hollywood		Extant, in Library of Congress; uncredited
1930	The Second Floor Mystery	Marion Ferguson	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	Road to Paradise	Mary Brennan/Margaret Waring	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	Warner Bros. Jubilee Dinner	Herself	Short subject
1930	Kismet	Marsinah	Lost (Vitaphone soundtrack discs at UCLA Film and Television)
1930	War Nurse	Nurse	Extant; made at MGM; uncredited (Young's scenes deleted)
1930	The Truth About Youth	Phyllis Ericson	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	The Devil to Pay!	Dorothy Hope	Extant; produced by Samuel Goldwyn; released by United Artists
1931	How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones No. 8: "The Brassie"	Herself	Short subject
1931	Beau Ideal	Isobel Brandon	Extant; made at RKO
1931	The Right of Way	Rosalie Evantural	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	The Stolen Jools	Herself	Short subject
1931	Three Girls Lost	Norene McMann	Extant
1931	Too Young to Marry	Elaine Bumpstead	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	Big Business Girl	Claie "Mac" McIntyre	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	I Like Your Nerve	Diane Forsythe	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	The Ruling Voice	Gloria Bannister	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	Platinum Blonde	Gallagher
1932	Taxi!	Sue Riley Nolan	Extant, in Library of Congress
1932	The Hatchet Man	Sun Toya San	Extant, in Library of Congress; original title The Honorable Mr. Wong
1932	Play Girl	Buster "Bus" Green Dennis	Extant, in Library of Congress
1932	Week-End Marriage	Lola Davis Hayes	Extant, in Library of Congress
1932	Life Begins	Grace Sutton	Extant, in Library of Congress
1932	They Call It Sin	Marion Cullen	Extant, in Library of Congress[34]
1933	Employees' Entrance	Madeleine Walters West	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	Grand Slam	Marcia Stanislavsky	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	Zoo in Budapest	Eve	Extant
1933	The Life of Jimmy Dolan	Peggy	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	Heroes for Sale	Ruth Loring Holmes	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	Midnight Mary	Mary Martin
1933	She Had to Say Yes	Florence "Flo" Denny	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	The Devil's in Love	Margot Lesesne	Extant
1933	Man's Castle	Trina	Extant
1934	The House of Rothschild	Julie Rothschild
1934	Born to Be Bad	Letty Strong
1934	Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back	Lola Field
1934	Caravan	Countess Wilma
1934	The White Parade	June Arden
1935	Clive of India	Margaret Maskelyne Clive
1935	Shanghai	Barbara Howard
1935	The Call of the Wild	Claire Blake
1935	The Crusades	Berengaria, Princess of Navarre
1935	Hollywood Extra Girl	Herself	Short subject
1936	The Unguarded Hour	Lady Helen Dudley Dearden
1936	Private Number	Ellen Neal
1936	Ramona	Ramona
1936	Ladies in Love	Susie Schmidt
1937	Love Is News	Toni Gateson
1937	Café Metropole	Laura Ridgeway
1937	Love Under Fire	Myra Cooper
1937	Wife, Doctor and Nurse	Ina Heath Lewis
1937	Second Honeymoon	Vicky
1938	Four Men and a Prayer	Miss Lynn Cherrington
1938	Three Blind Mice	Pamela Charters
1938	Suez	Countess Eugenie de Montijo
1938	Kentucky	Sally Goodwin
1939	Wife, Husband and Friend	Doris Borland
1939	The Story of Alexander Graham Bell	Mrs. Mabel Hubbard Bell
1939	Eternally Yours	Anita
1940	The Doctor Takes a Wife	June Cameron
1940	He Stayed for Breakfast	Marianna Duval
1941	The Lady from Cheyenne	Annie Morgan
1941	The Men in Her Life	Lina Varsavina
1941	Bedtime Story	Jane Drake
1942	A Night to Remember	Nancy Troy
1943	China	Carolyn Grant
1943	Show Business at War	Herself	Short subject
1944	Ladies Courageous	Roberta Harper	biopic of the WWII WASPs, pioneering women pilots
1944	And Now Tomorrow	Emily Blair
1945	Along Came Jones	Cherry de Longpre
1946	The Stranger	Mary Longstreet
1947	The Perfect Marriage	Maggie Williams
1947	The Farmer's Daughter	Katrin "Katy" Holstrum	Academy Award for Best Actress
1947	The Bishop's Wife	Julia Brougham
1948	Rachel and the Stranger	Rachel Harvey
1949	The Accused	Dr. Wilma Tuttle
1949	Mother Is a Freshman	Abigail Fortitude Abbott
1949	Come to the Stable	Sister Margaret	Nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress
1950	Key to the City	Clarissa Standish
1951	You Can Change the World	Herself	Short subject
1951	Cause for Alarm	Ellen Jones
1951	Half Angel	Nora Gilpin
1951	Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Awards	Herself	Short subject
1952	Paula	Paula Rogers
1952	Because of You	Christine Carroll Kimberly
1953	It Happens Every Thursday	Jane MacAvoy

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1953-1961	The Loretta Young Show	Self - Host	162 episodes; 8 seasons
1962-1963	The New Loretta Young Show	Christine Massey	26 episodes; 1 season
1986	Christmas Eve	Amanda Kingsley	TV movie
1989	Lady in a Corner	Grace Guthrie	TV movie
1994	Life Along the Mississippi	Narrator	Voice; TV documentary

Radio

Year	Program	Episode/source
1936	Lux Radio Theatre	""Polly Of The Circus"[35][36]
1940	The Campbell Playhouse	"Theodora Goes Wild"[37][38]
1943	Lux Radio Theatre	"The Philadelphia Story"
1945	Cavalcade of America	"Children, This Is Your Father"[37]
1947	Family Theater	"Flight from Home"[37]
1950	Suspense	"Lady Killer"[37]
1952	Lux Radio Theatre	"Come to the Stable"[39]
1952	Family Theater	"Heritage of Home"[40]
1953	Family Theater	"The Longest Hour"[41]

Awards and nominations

Year	Association	Category	Project	Result	Ref.
1947	Academy Award	Best Actress	The Farmer's Daughter	Won
1949			Come to the Stable	Nominated
1958	Golden Globe Awards	Television Achievement	The Loretta Young Show	Won
1986		Best Actress - Miniseries or Television Film	Christmas Eve	Won
1989			Lady in the Corner	Nominated
1954	Primetime Emmy Awards	Best Female Star of a Regular Series	Letter to Loretta	Nominated
1955		Best Actress Starring in a Regular Series	The Loretta Young Show	Won
1956		Best Actress - Single Performance		Nominated
1957		Best Continuing Performance by an Actress		Won
1959		Best Actress in a Leading Role (Dramatic)		Won
		Best Continuing Performance (Female) in a Series		Nominated
1960		Outstanding Actress in a Series (Lead or Support)		Nominated
1961		Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Series (Lead)		Nominated

In 1988, Young received the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who through their endurance and the excellence of their work helped expand the role of women in the entertainment industry.^[42] Young has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for her work in television, at 6135 Hollywood Boulevard, and the other for her work in motion pictures, at 6100 Hollywood Boulevard.^[43] In 2011, a Golden Palm Star on the Walk of Stars, in Palm Springs, California, was dedicated to her.^[44]

See also

• List of actors with Academy Award nominations

References

Further reading

• Brooks, Tim & Marsh, Earle (2009). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0307483201.
• Lewis, Judy (1994). Uncommon Knowledge. Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0671700201..
• "Tuning in to Women in Television" (National Women's History Museum)
• Morella, Joe and Epstein, Edward Z (1986) Loretta Young, An Extraordinary Life, Delacorte Press, ISBN 978-0385293976

External links

• Loretta Young at IMDb
• Loretta Young at the TCM Movie Database
• Loretta Young at AllMovie
• Photographs and bibliography