Claudette Colbert

Actresses

Claudette Colbert (born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin; September 13, 1903 – July 30, 1996) was a French born American stage and film actress. She began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to motion pictures with the advent of Talking pictures. Initially associated with Paramount Pictures, she gradually shifted to working as a freelance actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in Frank Capra‘s It Happened One Night (1934), with Clark Gable; which was first film to win the Big 5 Academy Awards (Picture, Director, Writer, Actor, and Actress), followed by Miloš Forman‘s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), with Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher; and Jonathan Demme‘s The Silence of the Lambs (1990), with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. She received two other Academy Award nominations for Private Words (1935), with Charles Boyle; and Since You Went Away (1944), with Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, and Shirley Temple. Other notable films include Cecil B. DeMille‘s Cleopatra (1934) and Preston Sturges‘s The Palm Beach Story (1942).

Notable early roles include The Hole in the Wall (1929), with Edward G. Robinson; The Lady Lies (1929), with Walter Huston and Charles Ruggles; Young Man of Manhattan (1930), with Norman Foster, Ginger Rogers, and Ruggles; His Woman (1931), with Gary Cooper; Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Sign of the Cross (1932), with Fredric March, Elissa Landi, and Charles Laughton; Frank Lloyd’s Under Two Flags (1936), with Ronald Colman, Victor McLaglen, and Rosalind Russell; Tovarich (1937), with Charles Boyer, Basil Rathbone, Anita Louise, Melville Cooper, Isabel Jeans, Morris Carnovsky, and Curt Bois; George Cukor‘s Zaza (1939), with Herbert Marshall; W.S. Van Dyke’s It’s a Wonderful World (1939), with James Stewart; John Ford‘s Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), with Henry Fonda; Boom Town (1940), with Gable, Spencer Tracy, and Hedy Lamarr; Arise, My Love (1940), with Ray Milland and Dennis O’Keefe; Henry King‘s Remember the Day (1941), with John Payne; and So Proudly We Hail (1943), with Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake

With her round face, big eyes, charming, aristocratic manner, and flair for light comedy, as well as emotional drama, Colbert was known for a versatility that led to her becoming one of the industry’s best-paid stars of the 1930s and 1940s and, in 1938 and 1942, the highest-paid star. During her career, Colbert starred in more than 60 movies. Among her frequent co-stars were Fred MacMurray in seven films (1935−49), and Fredric March in four films (1930−33).

Other notable films include Tomorrow Is Forever (1946), with Orson Welles, George Brent, Richard Long, and Natalie Wood; Without Reservations (1946), with John Wayne and Don DeFore; Douglas Sirk‘s Sleep, My Love (1948), with Robert Cummings and Don Ameche.

By the early 1950s, Colbert had basically retired from the screen in favor of television and stage work, and she earned a Tony Award nomination for The Marriage-Go-Round in 1959. Her career tapered off during the early 1960s, but in the late 1970s she experienced a career resurgence in theater, earning a Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago theater work in 1980. For her television work in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987), she won a Golden Globe Award and received an Emmy Award nomination. In 1999, the American Film Institute posthumously voted Colbert the 12th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

Film

For the Love of Mike (1927) – directed by Frank Capra – believed lost
The Hole in the Wall (1929) – directed by Robert Florey
The Lady Lies (1929) – directed by Hobart Henley
Young Man of Manhattan (1930) – directed by Monta Bell
The Big Pond (1930) – directed by Hobart Henley
Manslaughter (1930) – directed by George Abbott
La grande mare (1930) – directed by Hobart Henley
Mysterious Mr. Parkes (1930) – directed by Louis J. Gasnier – aka L’Énigmatique Monsieur Parkes
Honor Among Lovers (1931) – directed by Dorothy Arzner
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) – directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Secrets of a Secretary (1931) – directed by George Abbott
His Woman (1931) – directed by Edward Sloman
The Wiser Sex (1932) – directed by Berthold & Victor Viertel
The Misleading Lady (1932) – directed by Stuart Walker
The Man from Yesterday (1932) – directed by Berthold Viertel
Make Me a Star (1932) – directed by William Beaudine – uncredited cameo as herself
The Phantom President (1932) – directed by Norman Taurog
The Sign of the Cross (1932) – directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Tonight Is Ours (1933) – directed by Stuart Walker
I Cover the Waterfront (1933) – directed by James Cruze
Three Cornered Moon (1933) – directed by Elliott Nugent
Torch Singer (1933) – directed by Alexander Hall & George Somnes
Four Frightened People (1934) – directed by Cecil B. DeMille
It Happened One Night (1934) – directed and by Frank Capra
Cleopatra (1934) – directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Imitation of Life (1934) – directed by John M. Stahl
The Gilded Lily (1935) – directed by Wesley Ruggles
Private Worlds (1935) – directed by Gregory La Cava
She Married Her Boss (1935) – directed by Gregory La Cava
The Bride Comes Home (1935) – directed by Wesley Ruggles
Under Two Flags (1936) – directed by Frank Lloyd
Maid of Salem (1937) – directed by Frank Lloyd
I Met Him in Paris (1937) – directed by Wesley Ruggles
Tovarich (1937) – directed by Anatole Litvak
Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938) – directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Zaza (1938) – directed by George Cukor
Midnight (1939) – directed by Mitchell Leisen
It’s a Wonderful World (1939) – directed by W.S. Van Dyke
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) – directed by John Ford
Boom Town (1940) – directed by Jack Conway
Arise, My Love (1940) – directed by Mitchell Leisen
Skylark (1941) – directed by Mark Sandrich
Remember the Day (1941) – directed by Henry King
The Palm Beach Story (1942) – directed by Preston Sturges
No Time for Love (1943) – directed by Mitchell Leisen
So Proudly We Hail! (1943) – directed by Mark Sandrich
Since You Went Away (1944) – directed by John Cromwell
Practically Yours (1944) – directed by Mitchell Leisen
Guest Wife (1945) – directed by Sam Wood
Tomorrow Is Forever (1946) – directed by Irving Pichel
Without Reservations (1946) – directed by Mervyn LeRoy
The Secret Heart (1946) – directed by Robert Z. Leonard
The Egg and I (1947) – directed by Chester Erskine
Sleep, My Love (1948) – directed by Douglas Sirk
Family Honeymoon (1948) – directed by Claude Binyon
Bride for Sale (1949) – directed by William D. Russell
Three Came Home (1950) – directed by Jean Negulesco
The Secret Fury (1950) – directed by Mel Ferrer
Thunder on the Hill (1951) – directed by Douglas Sirk
Let’s Make It Legal (1951) – directed by Richard Sale
Outpost in Malaya (1952) – directed by Ken Annakin – aka The Planter’s Wife
Daughters of Destiny (1954) – directed by Marcello Pagliero, Jean Delannoy, & Christian-Jaque – anthology – aka Love, Soldiers and Women, Destinées, & Destini di donne
Royal Affairs in Versailles (1954) – directed by Sacha Guitry – aka Si Versailles m’était conté
Texas Lady (1955) – directed by Tim Whelan
Parish (1961) – directed by Delmer Daves

The Best of Broadway (1954-1955) – 2 episodes
General Electric Theater (1954-1958) – 3 episodes
The Ford Television Theatre (1955) – 2 episodes
Climax! (1955) – 2 episodes
Letter to Loretta (1955) – 1 episode, Herself – Guest Hostess
Ford Star Jubilee (1956) – 1 episode
Robert Montgomery Presents (1956) – 1 episode
Playhouse 90 (1957) – 1 episode
Zane Grey Theater (1957-1960) – 2 episodes
Telephone Time (1 episode, 1957)
Colgate Theatre (1949 – 1958) – 1 episode
Suspicion (1958) – 1 episode
Frontier Justice (1959) – 1 episode
The Bells of St. Mary’s (1959) – directed by Tom Donovan – TV movie
The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987) – irected by John Erman – miniseries

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