Loretta Young

Loretta Young (born Gretchen Michaela 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 1916 to 1989. 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).

Young was born Gretchen Michaela Young in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of Gladys (née Royal) and John Earle Young. She was of Luxembourgish descent. 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' brother-in-law helped Gretchen and her sisters 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. To do so, she proposed that she adopt Gretchen's younger brother John Royal Young (1914–1997), educating him to be a lawyer like her late husband. Her brother thus became John Royal Young Lindley (later John R. Lindley), and he became a lawyer. However, as a result he did not remain in close contact with his sisters. 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 Ann Young, Sally Blane, and John R. Lindley all died in their 80s in 1997. John R. Lindley's son, David, became a well-known multi-instrumentalist rock musician.

Young's first role was at the age of just three (although uncredited) 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. Moore gave her the name Loretta, explaining that it was the name of her favorite doll.

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. 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.