Paulette Goddard

Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress and socialite. She was a prominent leading actress during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Born in New York City and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Goddard initially began her career as a child fashion model and performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl. In the early 1930s, she moved to Hollywood and gained notice as the romantic partner of actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin, appearing as his leading lady in Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940). After signing with Paramount Pictures, Goddard became one of the studio's biggest stars with roles in The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, The Women (1939) with Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford, North West Mounted Police (1940) with Gary Cooper, Reap the Wild Wind (1942) with John Wayne and Susan Hayward, So Proudly We Hail! (1943), Kitty (1945) with Ray Milland, and Unconquered (1947) with Gary Cooper. She received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in So Proudly We Hail! in 1943.

Goddard was noted as a fiercely independent woman for her time, being described by one executive as "dynamite". Her marriages to Chaplin, the actor Burgess Meredith, and the writer Erich Maria Remarque received substantial media attention. Following her marriage to Remarque, Goddard moved to Switzerland and largely retired from acting. In the 1980s, she became a notable socialite. Goddard died in Switzerland in 1990.

Goddard was born in New York City, as Marion Levy, the daughter of Joseph Russell Le Vee, the son of a prosperous cigar manufacturer from Salt Lake City, and Alta Mae Goddard. Her place of birth is listed in Britannica Encyclopedia at Great Neck, New York. Her parents separated and divorced in 1926. According to Goddard, her father left them, but according to J. R. Le Vee, Alta absconded with the child to avoid a custody battle, she and her mother moved often during her childhood, including relocating to Canada at one point. Goddard did not meet her father again until the late 1930s, after she had become famous. In a 1938 interview published in Collier's, Goddard claimed Le Vee was not her biological father. In response, Le Vee filed a suit against his daughter, claiming that the interview had ruined his reputation and cost him his job, and demanded financial support from her; Goddard admitted her loss in the case in a December 1945 interview with Life, and was forced to pay her father $35 a week. The rift never healed, and when he died in 1954, he left her only $1 in his will.

Goddard began modeling after her parents' separation, working for Saks Fifth Avenue, Hattie Carnegie, and others. An important figure in her childhood was her mother's paternal uncle Charles Goddard, the owner of the American Druggists Syndicate. He played a central role in Goddard's career, introducing her to Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld. In 1926, she made her stage debut as a dancer in Ziegfeld's summer revue, No Foolin' under the stage name Paulette Goddard. Ziegfeld hired her for another musical, Rio Rita, which opened in February 1927, but she left the show after only three weeks to appear in the play The Unconquerable Male, produced by Archie Selwyn. However, it was a flop and closed after only three days following its premiere in Atlantic City. Soon after, Goddard was introduced to Edgar James, president of the Southern Lumber Company, located in Asheville, North Carolina, by Charles Goddard. Aged 17, considerably younger than James, she married him on June 28, 1927, in Rye, New York. It was a short marriage, and they separated in 1929; Goddard was granted a divorce in Reno, Nevada, in 1932, receiving a divorce settlement of $375,000.

Goddard first visited Hollywood in 1929. She appeared as an uncredited extra in two films, the Laurel and Hardy short film Berth Marks (1929) and George Fitzmaurice's drama The Locked Door (1929). Following her divorce from James, Goddard and her mother briefly visited Europe before returning to Hollywood. Upon her return, Goddard signed her first film contract with producer Samuel Goldwyn to appear as a Goldwyn Girl in Whoopee! (1930). She also appeared in City Streets (1931), Ladies of the Big House (1931), and The Girl Habit (1931) for Paramount, Palmy Days (1931) for Goldwyn, and The Mouthpiece (1932) for Warners. However, Goddard and Goldwyn did not get along, and she also began work for Hal Roach Studios in 1932, appearing in a string of uncredited supporting roles for the next four years.

The year she signed with Hal Roach, Goddard began dating Charlie Chaplin, a relationship that received substantial attention from the press. Chaplin sent her to local acting teacher Neely Dickson at the Hollywood Community Theater to, in Dickson's words, "give her a polish." It marked a turning point in Goddard's career when Chaplin cast her as his leading lady in his next box office hit, Modern Times (1936). Her role as "The Gamin," an orphan girl who runs away from the authorities and becomes The Tramp's companion, was her first credited film appearance and garnered her mainly positive reviews, Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times describing her as "the fitting recipient of the great Charlot's championship".

Following the success of Modern Times, Chaplin planned other projects with Goddard in mind as a co-star. However, Chaplin worked on his projects slowly, and Goddard worried that the public might forget about her if she did not continue to make regular film appearances. She signed a contract with David O. Selznick and appeared with Janet Gaynor in the comedy The Young in Heart (1938). Selznick, who was pleased with Goddard's performance in the film, strongly considered her for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Initial screen tests convinced Selznick and director George Cukor that Goddard would require coaching to be effective in the role, but that she showed the most promise. By December 1938, Selznick had narrowed the choices to Goddard and Vivien Leigh, who won the role after the two completed the only Technicolor screen tests for the role. Goddard's losing out on the role was attributable to several factors. Notably, the head of Selznick's publicity department Russell Birdwell had strong misgivings about Goddard, writing, "Briefly, I think she is dynamite that will explode in our very faces if she is given the part." Chaplin's biographer Joyce Milton wrote that Selznick also worried about legal issues by signing Goddard to a contract that might conflict with her pre-existing contracts with the Chaplin studio.