Jean Arthur

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Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur - signed.jpg
Publicity photo, mid-1930s
Born
Gladys Georgianna Greene

(1900-10-17)October 17, 1900
Plattsburgh, New York, U.S.
DiedJune 19, 1991(1991-06-19) (aged 90)
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1923–1975
Spouse(s)
Julian Anker
​
​
(m. 1928; annul. 1928)​

Frank Ross Jr.
​
​
(m. 1932; div. 1949)​

Jean Arthur (born Gladys Georgianna Greene; October 17, 1900 – June 19, 1991)[1] was an American Broadway and film actress whose career began in silent films in the 1920s and lasted until the early 1950s.

Arthur had feature roles in three Frank Capra films: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can't Take It with You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), films that championed the "everyday heroine". Arthur was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1944 for her performance in The More the Merrier (1943).[2]

James Harvey wrote in his history of the romantic comedy: "No one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur. So much was she part of it, so much was her star personality defined by it, that the screwball style itself seems almost unimaginable without her."[3] She has been called "the quintessential comedic leading lady".[4] Her last film performance was non-comedic, playing the homesteader's wife in George Stevens's Shane in 1953.

Arthur was known as a reclusive woman. News magazine Life observed in a 1940 article: "Next to Garbo, Jean Arthur is Hollywood's reigning mystery woman."[5] As well as recoiling from interviews, she avoided photographers and refused to become a part of any kind of publicity.[6]

Early life[]

Arthur was born Gladys Georgianna Greene in Plattsburgh, New York, to Protestant parents, Johanna Augusta Nelson (1871–1959) and Hubert Sidney Greene (1863–1944).[7] Gladys' Lutheran maternal grandparents immigrated from Norway to the American West after the Civil War. Her Congregationalist paternal ancestors immigrated from England to Rhode Island in the second half of the 1600s. During the 1790s, Nathaniel Greene helped found the town of St. Albans, Vermont, where his great-grandson, Hubert Greene, was born on September 1, 1863.

Johanna and Hubert were married in Billings, Montana, on July 7, 1890. Gladys's three older brothers—Donald Hubert Greene (1890–1967), Robert Brazier Greene (1892–1955), and Albert Sidney Greene (1894–1926)[8]—were born in the West. Around 1897, Hubert moved his wife and three sons from Billings to Plattsburgh, so he could work as a photographer at the Woodward Studios on Clinton Street. Johanna gave birth to stillborn twins on April 1, 1898.

Two and a half years later, Johanna gave birth to Gladys Georgianna. The product of a nomadic childhood, the future Jean Arthur lived at times in Saranac Lake, New York; Jacksonville, Florida, where George Woodward, Hubert's Plattsburgh employer, opened a second studio; and Schenectady, New York, where Hubert had grown up and where several members of his family still lived. The Greenes lived on and off in Westbrook, Maine, from 1908 to 1915 while Gladys's father worked at Lamson Studios in Portland, Maine. Relocating in 1915 to New York City, the family settled in the Washington Heights neighborhood – at 573 West 159th Street – of upper Manhattan, and Hubert worked at Ira L. Hill's photographic studio on Fifth Avenue.[citation needed]

Gladys dropped out of high school in her junior year due to a "change in family circumstances".[9] Presaging many of her later film roles, she worked as a stenographer on Bond Street in lower Manhattan during and after World War I. Both her father (at age 55, claiming to be 45) and siblings registered for the draft. Her brother Albert died in 1926 as a result of respiratory injuries suffered during a mustard gas attack during World War I.

Career[]

Silent film[]

It would have been better business if I cried in front of the producers. It isn't a bad idea to get angry and chew up the scenery. I've had to learn to be a different person since I've been out here. Anybody that sticks it out in Hollywood for four years is bound to change in self-defense... Oh, I'm hard-boiled now. I don't expect anything. But it took me a long time to get over hoping, and believing, people's promises. That's the worst of this business, everyone is such a good promisor.[10]

—Arthur commenting on her unsuccessful film career in 1928.

Discovered by Fox Film Studios while she was doing commercial modeling in New York City in the early 1920s, the newly named Jean Arthur landed a one-year contract and debuted in the silent film Cameo Kirby (1923), directed by John Ford. She reputedly took her stage name from two of her greatest heroes, Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc) and King Arthur.[11] The studio was at the time looking for new American sweethearts with sufficient sex appeal to interest the Jazz Age audiences. Arthur was remodeled as such a personality, a flapper.[12] Following the small role in Cameo Kirby, she received her first female lead role in The Temple of Venus (1923), a plotless tale about a group of dancing nymphs. Dissatisfied with her lack of acting talent, the film's director Henry Otto replaced Arthur with actress Mary Philbin during the third day of shooting. Arthur agreed with the director: "There wasn't a spark from within. I was acting like a mechanical doll personality. I thought I was disgraced for life."[13] She was planning on leaving the California film industry for good, but reluctantly stayed due to her contract, and appeared in comedy shorts instead. Despite lacking the required talent, Arthur liked acting, which she perceived as an "outlet". To acquire some fame, she registered herself in the Los Angeles city directory as a photo player operator, as well as appearing in a promotional film for a new Encino nightclub, but to no avail.[14]

Change came when one day she showed up at the lot of Action Pictures, which produced B Westerns, and impressed its owner Lester F. Scott Jr., with her presence. He decided to take a chance on a complete unknown, and she was cast in over 20 Westerns in a two-year period. Only receiving $25 a picture, Arthur suffered from difficult working conditions: "The films were generally shot on location, often in the desert near Los Angeles, under a scorching sun that caused throats to parch and make-up to run. Running water was nowhere to be found, and even outhouses were a luxury not always present. The extras on these films were often real cowboys, tough men who were used to roughing it and who had little use for those who were not."[15] The films were moderately successful in second-rate Midwestern theaters, though Arthur received no official attention. Aside from appearing in films for Action Pictures between 1924 and 1926, she worked in some independent Westerns, including The Drug Store Cowboy (1925), and Westerns for Poverty Row, as well as having an uncredited bit part in Buster Keaton's Seven Chances (1925).[citation needed]

Publicity photo, circa 1930
Publicity photo, circa 1939

In 1927, Arthur attracted more attention when she appeared opposite Mae Busch and Charles Delaney as a gold-digging chorus girl in Husband Hunters. Subsequently, she was romanced by actor Monty Banks in Horse Shoes (1927), both a commercial and critical success. She was cast on Banks's insistence, and received a salary of $700.[16] Next, director Richard Wallace ignored Fox's wishes to cast a more experienced actress by assigning Arthur to the female lead in The Poor Nut (1927), a college comedy which gave her wide exposure to audiences. A reviewer for Variety did not spare the actress in his review: "With everyone in Hollywood bragging about the tremendous overflow of charming young women all battering upon the directorial doors leading to an appearance in pictures, it seems strange that from all these should have been selected two flat specimens such as Jean Arthur and Jane Winton. Neither of the girls has screen presence. Even under the kindliest treatment from the camera, they are far from attractive and in one or two side shots almost impossible."[17] Fed up with the direction that her career was taking, Arthur expressed her desire for a big break in an interview at the time. She was skeptical when signed to a small role in Warming Up (1928), a film produced for a big studio, Famous Players-Lasky, and featuring major star Richard Dix. Promoted as the studio's first sound film, it received wide media attention, and Arthur earned praise for her portrayal of a club owner's daughter. Variety opined, "Dix and Arthur are splendid in spite of the wretched material", while Screenland wrote that Arthur "is one of the most charming young kissees who ever officiated in a Dix film. Jean is winsome; she neither looks nor acts like the regular movie heroine. She's a nice girl – but she has her moments."[18] The success of Warming Up resulted in Arthur being signed to a three-year contract with the studio, soon to be known as Paramount Pictures, at $150 a week.

Transition to sound film[]

With the rise of the talkies in the late 1920s, Arthur was among the many silent-screen actors of Paramount Pictures initially unwilling to adapt to sound films.[19] Upon realizing that the craze for sound films was not a phase, she met with sound coach Roy Pomeroy. Her distinctive, throaty voice – in addition to some stage training on Broadway in the early 1930s – eventually helped make her a star in the talkies, but it initially prevented directors from casting her in films.[20] In her early talkies, this "throaty" voice is still missing, and whether it has not yet emerged or whether she hid it remains unclear.[21] Her all-talking film debut was The Canary Murder Case (1929), in which she co-starred opposite William Powell and Louise Brooks. Arthur impressed only a few with the film, and later claimed that at the time she was a "very poor actress ... awfully anxious to improve, but ... inexperienced so far as genuine training was concerned."[22]

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

In the early years of talking pictures, Paramount was known for contracting Broadway actors with experienced vocals and impressive background references. Arthur was not among these actors, and she struggled for recognition in the film industry. Her personal involvement with rising Paramount executive David O. Selznick – despite his relationship with Irene Mayer Selznick – proved substantial; she was put on the map and became selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1929. Following a silent B-western called Stairs of Sand (1929), she received some positive notices when she played the female lead in the lavish production of The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929).[20] Arthur was given more publicity assignments, which she carried out, though she immensely disliked posing for photographers and giving interviews.[20]

Through Selznick, Arthur received her "best role to date" opposite famous sex symbol Clara Bow in the early sound film The Saturday Night Kid (1929).[23] Of the two female leads, Arthur was thought to have "the better part", and director Edward Sutherland claimed, "Arthur was so good that we had to cut and cut to keep her from stealing the picture" from Bow.[24] While some argued that Bow resented Arthur for having the "better part,"[25] Bow encouraged Arthur to make the most of the production.[24] Arthur later praised her working experience with Bow: "[Bow] was so generous, no snootiness or anything. She was wonderful to me."[26] The film was a moderate success, and The New York Times wrote that the film would have been "merely commonplace, were it not for Jean Arthur, who plays the catty sister with a great deal of skill."[25]

Following a role in Halfway to Heaven (1929) opposite popular actor Charles "Buddy" Rogers (of which Variety opined that her career could be heading somewhere if she acquired more sex appeal),[25] Selznick assigned her to play William Powell's wife in Street of Chance (1930). She did not impress the film's director John Cromwell, who advised the actress to move back to New York because she would not make it in Hollywood.[25] By 1930, her relationship with Selznick had ended, causing her career at Paramount to slip.[27] Following a string of "lifeless ingenue roles" in mediocre films, she debuted on stage in December 1930 with a supporting role in Pasadena Playhouse's 10-day production run of Spring Song. Back in Hollywood, Arthur saw her career deteriorating, and she dyed her hair blonde in an attempt to boost her image and avoid comparison with more successful actress Mary Brian.[28] Her effort did not pay off; when her three-year contract at Paramount expired in mid-1931, she was given her release with an announcement from Paramount that the decision was due to financial setbacks caused by the Great Depression.[28]

Broadway and Columbia Pictures[]

With Ronald Colman in Talk of the Town (1942)

In late 1931, Arthur returned to New York City, where a Broadway agent cast Arthur in an adaptation of Lysistrata, which opened at the Riviera Theater on January 24, 1932. A few months later, she made her Broadway debut in Foreign Affairs opposite Dorothy Gish and Osgood Perkins. Though the play did not fare well and closed after 23 performances, critics were impressed by her work on stage.[29] She next won the female lead in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head, which opened on September 8, 1932, at the Broadhurst Theatre to mostly mixed notices for Arthur; negative reviews for the play caused the production to be halted quickly.[30] Arthur returned to California for the holidays, and appeared in the RKO film The Past of Mary Holmes (1933), her first film in two years.

Back on Broadway, Arthur continued to appear in small plays that received little attention. Critics, however, continued to praise her in their reviews. In this period, Arthur arguably developed confidence in her acting craft for the first time.[31] On the contrast between films in Hollywood and plays in New York, Arthur commented:

I don't think Hollywood is the place to be yourself. The individual ought to find herself before coming to Hollywood. On the stage I found myself to be in a different world. The individual counted. The director encouraged me and I learned how to be myself.... I learned to face audiences and to forget them. To see the footlights and not to see them; to gauge the reactions of hundreds of people, and yet to throw myself so completely into a role that I was oblivious to their reaction.[31]

In The Talk of the Town (1942)

The Curtain Rises, which ran from October to December 1933, was Arthur's first Broadway play in which she was the center of attention.[32] With an improved résumé, she returned to Hollywood in late 1933, and turned down several contract offers until she was asked to meet with an executive from Columbia Pictures.[33] Arthur agreed to star in a film, Whirlpool (1934), and during production, she was offered a long-term contract that promised financial stability for both of her parents and her.[33] Though hesitant to give up her stage career, Arthur signed the five-year contract on February 14, 1934.[9]

In 1935, at age 34, Arthur starred opposite Edward G. Robinson in the gangster farce The Whole Town's Talking, also directed by Ford, and her popularity began to rise. It was the first time Arthur portrayed a hard-boiled working girl with a heart of gold, the type of role with which she would be associated for the rest of her career.[34] She enjoyed the acting experience and working opposite Robinson, who remarked in his biography that it was a "delight to work with and know" Arthur.[35] By the time of the film's release, her hair, naturally brunette throughout the silent film portion of her career, was bleached blonde and mostly stayed that way. She was known for maneuvering to be photographed and filmed almost exclusively from the left; Arthur felt that her left was her best side, and worked hard to keep it in the fore. Director Frank Capra recalled producer Harry Cohn's description of Jean Arthur's imbalanced profile: "half of it's angel, and the other half horse."[36] Her next few films, Party Wire (1935), Public Hero No. 1 (1935), and If You Could Only Cook (1935), did not match the success of The Whole Town's Talking, but they all brought the actress positive reviews.[35] In his review for The New York Times, critic Andre Sennwald praised Arthur's performance in Public Hero No. 1, writing that she "is as refreshing a change from the routine it-girl as Joseph Calleia is in his own department."[37] Another critic wrote of her performance in If You Could Only Cook that "[she is] outstanding as she effortlessly slips from charming comedienne to beautiful romantic."[38] With her now apparent rise to fame, Arthur was able to extract several contractual concessions from Harry Cohn, such as script and director approval and the right to make films for other studios.[39]

The turning point in Arthur's career came when she was chosen by Frank Capra to star in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Capra had spotted her in a daily rush[36] from the film Whirlpool in 1934[40] and convinced Cohn to have Columbia Studios sign her for his next film as a tough newspaperwoman who falls in love with a country bumpkin millionaire. Though several colleagues later recalled that Arthur was troubled by extreme stage fright during production, Mr. Deeds was critically acclaimed and propelled her to international stardom.[41] In 1936 alone, she earned $119,000, more than the President of the United States and baseball player Lou Gehrig.[42] With fame also came media attention, something Arthur greatly disliked. She did not attend any social gatherings, such as formal parties in Hollywood, and acted difficult when having to work with an interviewer. She was named the American Greta Garbo – who was also known for her reclusive life – and magazine Movie Classic wrote of her in 1937: "With Garbo talking right out loud in interviews, receiving the press and even welcoming an occasional chance to say her say in the public prints, the palm for elusiveness among screen stars now goes to Jean Arthur."[43]

Arthur's next film was The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936), on loan to RKO Pictures, in which she starred opposite William Powell on his insistence,[44] and hoped to take a long vacation afterwards. Cohn, however, rushed her into two more productions, Adventure in Manhattan (1936) and More Than a Secretary (1936). Neither film attracted much attention.[45] Next, again without pause, she was reteamed with Cooper, playing Calamity Jane in Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman (1936) on another loan, this time for Paramount Pictures. Arthur, who was De Mille's second choice after Mae West, described Calamity Jane as her favorite role thus far.[45] Afterwards, she appeared as a working girl, her typical role, in Mitchell Leisen's screwball comedy, Easy Living (1937), with Ray Milland. She followed this with another screwball comedy, Capra's You Can't Take It with You, which teamed her with James Stewart. The film won an Academy Award for Best Picture with Arthur getting top billing.

So strong was her box-office appeal by now that she was one of four finalists for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). The film's producer, David O. Selznick, had briefly romanced Arthur in the late 1920s when they both were with Paramount. Arthur reunited with director Frank Capra and Stewart for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), with Arthur cast once again as a working woman, this time one who teaches the naïve Mr. Smith the ways of Washington, DC.

Arthur continued to star in films such as Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings (also 1939), with love interest Cary Grant, The Talk of the Town (1942), directed by George Stevens (with Cary Grant and Ronald Colman, working together for the only time, as Arthur's two leading men), and again for Stevens as a government clerk in The More the Merrier (1943), for which Arthur was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress (losing to Jennifer Jones for The Song of Bernadette). As a result of being in dispute with studio boss Harry Cohn, her fee for The Talk of the Town (1942) was only $50,000, while her male co-stars Grant and Colman received upwards of $100,000 each. Arthur remained Columbia's top star until the mid-1940s, when she left the studio, and Rita Hayworth took over as the studio's biggest name. Stevens famously called her "one of the greatest comediennes the screen has ever seen," while Capra credited her as "my favorite actress."[46]

Later career[]

Arthur with Alan Ladd in Shane (1953)

Arthur retired when her contract with Columbia Pictures expired in 1944. She reportedly ran through the studio's streets, shouting "I'm free, I'm free!"[47] For the next several years, she turned down virtually all film offers, the two exceptions being Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair (1948), in which she played a congresswoman and rival of Marlene Dietrich, and as a homesteader's wife in the classic Western Shane (1953), which turned out to be the biggest box-office hit of her career. The latter was her final film, and the only color film in which she appeared.[48]

Arthur's postretirement work in theater was intermittent, somewhat curtailed by her unease and discomfort about working in public.[49] Capra claimed she vomited in her dressing room between scenes, yet emerged each time to perform a flawless take. According to John Oller's biography, Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew (1997), Arthur developed a kind of stage fright punctuated with bouts of psychosomatic illnesses. A prime example was in 1945, when she was cast in the lead of the Garson Kanin play, Born Yesterday. Her nerves and insecurity got the better of her and she left the production before it reached Broadway, opening the door for a then-unknown Judy Holliday to take the part.[citation needed]

She did score a major triumph on Broadway in 1950, starring in Leonard Bernstein's adaptation of Peter Pan, playing the title character, when she was almost 50. She tackled the role of her eponym, Joan of Arc, in a 1954 stage production of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, but she left the play after a nervous breakdown and battles with director Harold Clurman.[citation needed]

Retirement[]

After Shane and the Broadway play Joan of Arc, Arthur went into retirement for 12 years. In 1965, she returned to show business in an episode of Gunsmoke. In 1966, the extremely reclusive Arthur took on the role of Patricia Marshall, an attorney, on her own television sitcom, The Jean Arthur Show, which was canceled mid-season by CBS after only 12 episodes. Ron Harper played her son, attorney Paul Marshall.[citation needed]

In 1967, Arthur was coaxed back to Broadway to appear as a midwestern spinster who falls in with a group of hippies in the play The Freaking Out of Stephanie Blake. In his book The Season, William Goldman reconstructed the disastrous production, which eventually closed during previews when Arthur refused to go on.[citation needed]

Arthur next decided to teach drama, first at Vassar College and then the North Carolina School of the Arts. While teaching at Vassar, she stopped a rather stridently overacted scene performance and directed the students' attention to a large tree growing outside the window of the performance space, advising the students on the art of naturalistic acting: "I wish people knew how to be people as well as that tree knows how to be a tree."[citation needed]

Her students at Vassar included the young Meryl Streep. Arthur recognized Streep's talent and potential very early on and after watching her performance in a Vassar play, Arthur said it was "like watching a movie star."[citation needed]

While living in North Carolina, in 1973, Arthur made front-page news by being arrested and jailed for trespassing on a neighbor's property to console a dog she felt was being mistreated.[50] An animal lover her entire life, Arthur said she trusted them more than people.[citation needed] She was convicted, fined $75 and given three years' probation.[50]

Arthur turned down the role of the female missionary in Lost Horizon (1973), the unsuccessful musical remake of the 1937 Frank Capra film of the same name. Then, in 1975, the Broadway play First Monday in October, about the first woman to be a Supreme Court justice, was written especially with Arthur in mind, but once again she succumbed to extreme stage fright, and quit the production shortly into its out-of-town run after leaving the Cleveland Play House. The play went on with Jane Alexander playing the role intended for Arthur.[51]

After the First Monday in October incident, Arthur then retired for good, retreating to her oceanside home in Carmel, California, steadfastly refusing interviews until her resistance was broken down by the author of a book about Capra. Arthur once famously said that she would rather have her throat slit than do an interview.[52]

Arthur was a Democrat and supported the campaign of Adlai Stevenson during the 1952 presidential election.[53]

Marriages[]

Arthur's first marriage, to photographer Julian Anker in 1928, was annulled after one day.[54] She married producer Frank Ross Jr., in 1932. They divorced in 1949.[55] She had no children by either union.

Death[]

Arthur died from heart failure June 19, 1991,[56] at the age of 90.[55] No funeral service was held.[56] She was cremated, and her remains were scattered off the coast of Point Lobos, California.[57]

Legacy[]

Upon her death, film reviewer Charles Champlin wrote the following in the Los Angeles Times:

To at least one teenager in a small town (though I'm sure we were a multitude), Jean Arthur suggested strongly that the ideal woman could be – ought to be – judged by her spirit as well as her beauty … The notion of the woman as a friend and confidante, as well as someone you courted and were nuts about, someone whose true beauty was internal rather than external, became a full-blown possibility as we watched Jean Arthur.[58]

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Jean Arthur has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6333 Hollywood Blvd.[59] The Jean Arthur Atrium was her gift to the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California.

On May 2, 2015, the city of Plattsburgh, New York, honored her with a plaque in front of the house where she was born (94 Oak Street).[citation needed]

On October 9, 2019, Plattsburgh unveiled a large commissioned mural of the actress by artist Brendon Palmer-Angell on a wall behind the bank building at 30 Brinkerhoff Street.[citation needed]

As of 2019, the Adirondacks Welcome Center near Exit 18 on the northbound lanes of the Northway (I-87) in Queensbury, New York, featured a ground plaque of Jean Arthur, among other famous persons connected to the Adirondacks region, as part of the Adirondacks Walk of Fame, similar in style to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles.[citation needed]

Filmography[]

Main article: Jean Arthur filmography

Radio appearances[]

Year Program Episode/source
1937 Lux Radio Theatre Mr. Deeds Goes to Town[60]
1937 Lux Radio Theatre The Plainsman
1938 Lux Radio Theatre Seventh Heaven
1939 Lux Radio Theatre Only Angels Have Wings
1939 Lux Radio Theatre Pygmalion
1940 Screen Guild Theater Jezebel
1941 Lux Radio Theatre Remember the Night
1943 Lux Radio Theatre The Talk of the Town
1953 Theatre Guild on the Air The Grand Tour[61]

See also[]

References[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ "Jean Arthur | American actress". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-10-22.
  2. ^ "The 16th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 15 July 2015. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  3. ^ Harvey 1987, p. 351.
  4. ^ Osborne, Robert. "Dedication at 17-film salute to Jean Arthur". Turner Classic Movies (broadcast), January 2007.
  5. ^ Oller 1997, p. 1.
  6. ^ Oller 1997, p. 2.
  7. ^ "Genealogy: Jean Arthur". Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com, August 14, 2010.
  8. ^ 1900 US Census, Plattsburgh, New York; and 1910 US Census, Cumberland, Maine.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Oller 1997, p. 34.
  10. ^ Oller 1997, p. 46.
  11. ^ Collins, Thomas W., Jr (2000). "Arthur, Jean (17 October 1900–19 June 1991)". American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1803494. (subscription required)
  12. ^ Oller 1997, p. 40.
  13. ^ Oller 1997, p. 41.
  14. ^ Oller 1997, p. 42.
  15. ^ Oller 1997, p. 43.
  16. ^ Oller 1997, p. 45.
  17. ^ Oller 1997, pp. 45–46.
  18. ^ Oller 1997, p. 47.
  19. ^ Oller 1997, p. 51.
  20. ^ Jump up to: a b c Oller 1997, p. 58.
  21. ^ Oller 1997, p. 52.
  22. ^ Oller 1997, p. 53.
  23. ^ Oller 1997, p. 60.
  24. ^ Jump up to: a b Stenn 1988, p. 178.
  25. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Oller 1997, p. 61.
  26. ^ Stenn 1988, p. 179.
  27. ^ Oller 1997, p. 62.
  28. ^ Jump up to: a b Oller 1997, p. 64.
  29. ^ Oller 1997, p. 69.
  30. ^ Oller 1997, p. 70.
  31. ^ Jump up to: a b Oller 1997, p. 71.
  32. ^ Oller 1997, p. 72.
  33. ^ Jump up to: a b Oller 1997, p. 73.
  34. ^ Oller 1997, p. 81.
  35. ^ Jump up to: a b Oller 1997, p. 82.
  36. ^ Jump up to: a b Capra 1971, p. 184.
  37. ^ "Read TCM's article on Public Hero No. 1". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2012-11-16.
  38. ^ "Read TCM's article on If You Could Only Cook". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2012-11-16.
  39. ^ Oller 1997, p. 83.
  40. ^ Oller 1997, p. 84.
  41. ^ Oller 1997, p. 85-86.
  42. ^ Oller 1997, p. 89.
  43. ^ Oller 1997, p. 92.
  44. ^ "Notes for The Ex-Mrs. Bradford". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2012-11-19.
  45. ^ Jump up to: a b Oller 1997, p. 93.
  46. ^ Capra 1971, pp. 184–185.
  47. ^ Morgan, Kim (2020-05-05). "Jean Arthur, the Nonconformist". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
  48. ^ Anthony, Elizabeth. "Jean Arthur at Screen Classics." Reelclassics.com, July 21, 2010. Retrieved: August 14, 2010.
  49. ^ "TCM Movie Database: Jean Arthur." Tcmdb.com, August 14, 2010.
  50. ^ Jump up to: a b "Actress Jean Arthur arrested, convicted". Greeley Daily Tribune. April 14, 1973. p. 18. Retrieved June 30, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  51. ^ "First Monday in October." ibdb.com. Retrieved: January 5, 2012.
  52. ^ Parish 2002, p. 92.
  53. ^ Motion Picture and Television Magazine, November 1952, page 33, Ideal Publishers
  54. ^ Oliver, Myrna. "Jean Arthur Dies; Comedy Film Star of the '30s and '40s." Articles.latimes.com, July 20, 1991. Retrieved: August 14, 2010.
  55. ^ Jump up to: a b Sarvady et al. 2006, p. 17.
  56. ^ Jump up to: a b "Actress Jean Arthur Dies Wednesday". Tyrone Daily Herald. June 20, 1991. p. 3. Retrieved June 30, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  57. ^ Brooks, Patricia; Brooks, Jonathan (2006). Laid to Rest in California: A Guide to the Cemeteries and Grave Sites of the Rich and Famous. Globe Pequot. pp. 313–314. ISBN 0-762-74101-5.
  58. ^ Champlin, Charles. "An Appreciation – Jean Arthur's Legacy of Indelible Performances – Movies: The actress, who died Wednesday at 90, brought a striking beauty, a unique voice and spirit to the roles that established her fame." Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1991. Retrieved: September 3, 2009.
  59. ^ "Jean Arthur". Hollywood Walk of Fame. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
  60. ^ "Those Were The Days". Nostalgia Digest. 40 (1): 32–39. Winter 2014.
  61. ^ Kirby, Walter (May 31, 1953). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 40. Retrieved June 30, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access

Bibliography[]

  • Capra, Frank. Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971. ISBN 0-306-80771-8.
  • Harvey, James. Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges. New York: Knopf, 1987. ISBN 0-394-50339-2.
  • Oller, John. Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew. New York: Limelight Editions, 1997. ISBN 0-87910-278-0.
  • Parish, James Robert. The Hollywood Book of Death: The Bizarre, Often Sordid, Passings of More Than 125 American Movie and TV Idols. New York: Contemporary Books, 2002. ISBN 0-8092-2227-2.
  • Parish, James Robert. The Hollywood Book of Extravagance: The Totally Infamous ... Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2007. ISBN 978-0-470-05205-1.
  • Sarvady, Andrea, Molly Haskell and Frank Miller. Leading Ladies: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006. ISBN 0-8118-5248-2.
  • Stenn, David. Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild. New York: Doubleday, 1988. ISBN 0-385-24125-9.

External links[]

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