Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman

Jean Arthur Born October 17, 1900 in Plattsburgh, New York, USA Died June 19, 1991 in Carmel, California, USA (heart failure) Birth Name Gladys Georgianna Greene Height 5' 3" (1.6 m) This marvelous screen comedienne's best asset was only muffled during her seven years' stint in silent films. That asset? It was, of course, her squeaky, frog-like voice, which silent-era cinema audiences had simply no way of perceiving, much less appreciating. Jean Arthur, born Gladys Georgianna Greene in upstate New York, 20 miles south of the Canadian border, has had her year of birth cited variously as 1900, 1905 and 1908. Her place of birth has often been cited as New York City! (Herein we shall rely for those particulars on Miss Arthur's obituary as given in the authoritative and reliable New York Times. The date and place indicated above shall be deemed correct.) Following her screen debut in a bit part in John Ford's Cameo Kirby (1923), she spent several years playing unremarkable roles as ingénue or leading lady in comedy shorts and cheapie westerns. With the arrival of sound she was able to appear in films whose quality was but slightly improved over that of her past silents. She had to contend, for example, with the consummately evil likes of Dr. Fu Manchu (played by future "Charlie Chan" Warner Oland). Her career bloomed with her appearance in Ford's The Whole Town's Talking (1935), in which she played opposite Edward G. Robinson, the latter in a dual role as a notorious gangster and his lookalike, a befuddled, well-meaning clerk. Here is where her wholesomeness and flair for farcical comedy began making themselves plain. The turning point in her career came when she was chosen by Frank Capra to star with Gary Cooper in the classic social comedy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). Here she rescues the hero - thus herself becoming heroine! - from rapacious human vultures who are scheming to separate him from his wealth. In Capra's masterpiece Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), she again rescues a besieged hero (James Stewart), protecting him from a band of manipulative and cynical politicians and their cronies and again she ends up as a heroine of sorts. For her performance in George Stevens' The More the Merrier (1943), in which she starred with Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn, she received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, but the award went to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943) (Coburn, incidentally, won for Best Supporting Actor). Her career began waning toward the end of the 1940s. She starred with Marlene Dietrich and John Lund in Billy Wilder's fluff about post-World War II Berlin, A Foreign Affair (1948). Thereafter, the actress would return to the screen but once, again for George Stevens but not in comedy. She starred with Alan Ladd and Van Heflin in Stevens' western Shane (1953), playing the wife of a besieged settler (Heflin) who accepts help from a nomadic gunman (Ladd) in the settler's effort to protect his farm. It was her silver-screen swansong. She would provide one more opportunity for a mass audience to appreciate her craft. In 1966 she starred as a witty and sophisticated lawyer, Patricia Marshall, a widow, in the TV series The Jean Arthur Show (1966). Her time was apparently past, however; the show ran for only 11 weeks. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Bill Takacs Spouse (2) Frank Ross (11 June 1932 - 14 March 1949) ( divorced) Julian Aster Ancker (1928 - 1928) ( annulled) Trade Mark (5) A distinctive voice: sometimes high-pitched, sometimes husky Light blonde hair Distinctive unconventional looks Always played willful, uncompromising women. She was often cast as independent "career women" when many actress were restricted to playing housewives, damsel in distress or femme fatales Ashes scattered off of Point Lobos, California, USA. Wore her natural brunette hair color throughout the silent film portion of her career, then began bleaching her hair blonde shortly after she started making talkies. Department of Strange Coincidences: Jean Arthur's former spouse, producer Frank Ross, next married the actress Joan Caulfield. On the very day following Caulfield's death on 18 June 1991, Arthur died. Marriage to Julian Anker was annulled after 1 day. After retiring from films she taught drama at Vassar and North Carolina School of the Arts from the late 1960s to 1973. Was a leading contender for the coveted role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). As her star began to decline, she was replaced by Rita Hayworth as Columbia Pictures' top female star. Coincidentally, the two stars share the same birthday (October 17). Turned down the role of the lady missionary in Lost Horizon (1973), the unsuccessful musical remake of the 1937 classic of the same name. Director George Stevens famously called her "one of the greatest comediennes the screen has ever seen" while Frank Capra credited her as "my favorite actress". On the completion of her Columbia contract in 1944, she reportedly ran through the studio's streets, shouting "I'm free, I'm free!". As a result of being in the doghouse with studio boss Harry Cohn, her fee for starring in The Talk of the Town (1942) was only $50,000 while her male co-stars (Ronald Colman, Cary Grant) received upwards of $100,000 each. Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith. pg. 30-31. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387 Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 15-16. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Allegedly took her stage name from two of her greatest heroes: Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc) and King Arthur.

Ronald Colman Born Ronald Charles Colman 9 February 1891 Richmond, Surrey, England, UK Died 19 May 1958 (aged 67) Santa Barbara, California, US Cause of death Emphysema Occupation Actor Years active 1914–57 Spouse(s) Thelma Raye (m. 1920; div. 1934) Benita Hume (m. 1938; his death 1958) Colman was an English-born actor, starting his career in theater and silent film in his native country, before emigrating to the USA, and having a successful Hollywood film career, he was most popular during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. He received Oscar nominations for Bulldog Drummond (1929), Condemned (1929) and Random Harvest (1942). Colman starred in several classic films, including A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Lost Horizon (1937) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). He also played the starring role in the Technicolor classic Kismet (1944), with Marlene Dietrich, which was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 1947, he won Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for the film A Double Life. Colman was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for his work in motion pictures. He was awarded a second star for his television work. Ronald Charles Colman was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman, a silk merchant, and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings comprised Eric, Edith and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he discovered that he enjoyed acting, despite his shyness. He intended to study engineering at Cambridge, but his father's sudden death from pneumonia in 1907 made it financially impossible. First World War While working as a clerk at the British Steamship Company in the City of London, he joined the London Scottish Regiment in 1909 as a Territorial Army soldier, and on being mobilized at the outbreak of the First World War, crossed the English Channel to France in September 1914 to take part in the fighting on the Western Front. On 31 October 1914, at the Battle of Messines, Colman was seriously wounded by shrapnel in his ankle, which gave him a limp that he would attempt to hide throughout the rest of his acting career. As a consequence, he was invalided out of the British Army in 1915. Colman had sufficiently recovered from wartime injuries to appear at the London Coliseum on 19 June 1916, as Rahmat Sheikh in The Maharani of Arakan, with Lena Ashwell; at the Playhouse in December that year as Stephen Weatherbee in the Charles Goddard/Paul Dickey play The Misleading Lady; at the Court Theatre in March 1917 as Webber in Partnership. At the same theatre the following year he appeared in Eugène Brieux's Damaged Goods. At the Ambassadors Theatre in February 1918 he played George Lubin in The Little Brother. During 1918, he toured as David Goldsmith in The Bubble.[citation needed] In 1920, Colman went to America and toured with Robert Warwick in The Dauntless Three, and subsequently toured with Fay Bainter in East is West. He married his first wife, Thelma Raye, in 1920; they divorced in 1934. At the Booth Theatre in New York in January 1921 he played the Temple Priest in William Archer's play The Green Goddess. With George Arliss at the 39th Street Theatre in August 1921 he appeared as Charles in The Nightcap. Director Henry King engaged him as the leading man in the 1923 film The White Sister, opposite Lillian Gish. He was an immediate success. Thereafter Colman virtually abandoned the stage for film. He became a very popular silent film star in both romantic and adventure films, among them The Dark Angel (1925), Stella Dallas (1926), Beau Geste (1926) and The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926). His dark hair and eyes and his athletic and riding ability (he did most of his own stunts until late in his career) led reviewers to describe him as a "Valentino type". He was often cast in similar, exotic roles.[7] Towards the end of the silent era, Colman was teamed with Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky under Samuel Goldwyn; the two were a popular film team rivalling Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. Although he was a huge success in silent films, he was unable to capitalize on one of his chief assets until the advent of the talking picture, "his beautifully modulated and cultured voice." also described as "a bewitching, finely-modulated, resonant voice." Colman was often viewed as a suave English gentleman, whose voice embodied chivalry and mirrored the image of a "Stereotypical English gentleman." Commenting on Colman's appeal, English film critic David Shipman stated that Colman was "'the dream lover - calm, dignified, trustworthy. Although he was a lithe figure in adventure stories, his glamour - which was genuine - came from his respectability; he was an aristocratic figure without being aloof.'" His first major talkie success was in 1930, when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for two roles – Condemned and Bulldog Drummond. He thereafter appeared in a number of notable films: Raffles in 1930, The Masquerader in 1933, Clive of India and A Tale of Two Cities in 1935, Under Two Flags, The Prisoner of Zenda and Lost Horizon in 1937, If I Were King in 1938 and Random Harvest and The Talk of the Town in 1942. He won the Best Actor Oscar in 1948 for A Double Life. He next starred in a screwball comedy, 1950's Champagne for Caesar. However, Colman died and the film became a British production starring George Sanders, who married Colman's widow, Benita Hume. Fame Colman has been mentioned in many novels, but he is specifically mentioned in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man because of his charming, well-known voice. The main character of this novel says that he wishes he could have a voice like Colman's because it is charming, and relates the voice to that of a gentleman or a man from Esquire magazine. Colman was indeed very well known for his voice. Encyclopædia Britannica says that Colman had a "resonant, mellifluous speaking voice with a unique, pleasing timbre". Along with his charming voice, Colman had a very confident performing manner that helped make him a major star of sound films. Radio and television Beginning in 1945, Colman made many guest appearances on The Jack Benny Program on radio, alongside his second wife, stage and screen actress Benita Hume, who he married in 1938. Their comedy work as Benny's perpetually exasperated next-door neighbors led to their own radio comedy The Halls of Ivy from 1950 to 1952, created by Fibber McGee & Molly mastermind Don Quinn, on which the Colmans played the literate, charming president of a middle American college and his former-actress wife. Colman was also the host and occasional star of the syndicated anthology Favorite Story, (1946-1949). Of note was his narration and portrayal of Scrooge in a 1948 production of "A Christmas Carol". Colman died on 19 May 1958, aged 67, from acute emphysema in Santa Barbara, California, and was interred in the Santa Barbara Cemetery. He had a daughter, Juliet Benita Colman (born 1944), by his second wife Benita Hume.[17] Awards and honours Colman was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actor. At the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony he received a single nomination for his work in two films; Bulldog Drummond (1929) and Condemned (1929). He was nominated again for Random Harvest (1942), before winning for A Double Life (1947), where he played the role of Anthony John, an actor playing Othello who comes to identify with the character. He also won the Golden Globe award for Best Actor in 1947 for his role in A Double Life. In 2002, Colman's Oscar statuette was sold at auction by Christie's for US$174,500.[18] Colman is a recipient of the George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film. Colman has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, one for motion pictures at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. and one for television at 1623 Vine Street. He is the subject of a biography written by his daughter Juliet Benita Colman in 1975, "Ronald Colman: A Very Private Person".