Ruth Chatterton

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Ruth Chatterton (December 24, 1892 – November 24, 1961) was an American actress and novelist. She also flew planes and knew Amelia Earhart.

Early life

Born in New York City on Christmas Eve 1892, of English and French extraction to Walter Smith and Lillian Reed Chatterton. She was a descendant of the English poet Thomas Chatterton. She was on Broadway by the age of 14, as a dancer.

Career

After leaving a private school at the age of 14, Ruth started off as a chorus girl in a stage play and was a star on the American stage by age eighteen. Her first film was Sins of the Fathers in 1928, and almost all of her films were pre-Code. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for two films: Madame X (1929) and Sarah and Son (1930). She starred in the Paramount Pictures all-star revue Paramount on Parade (1930).

Her stage experience enhanced many of her film performances when the "silents" segued to the "talkies." Although her first "talkies" were merely filmed stage productions, her enunciation and acting were appreciated by the public and critics alike. When she left Paramount, her initial studio, for Warner Brothers (along with Kay Francis and William Powell), it was noted that the brothers Warner needed an infusion of "class."

She co-starred in the film Dodsworth (1936), for Samuel Goldwyn and United Artists, which is widely regarded as her finest film, although not a pre-Code film. Chatterton's last film was A Royal Divorce in 1938. However, she appeared on U.S. television in several plays, including a TV adaptation of Dodsworth, in which she recreated her film role. Her last television appearance was as Gertrude in a 1953 adaptation of Hamlet, with Maurice Evans in the title role, on the Hallmark Hall of Fame. She then moved to England.

Later life

Having left acting, she began a successful writing career, producing several novels. She was also one of the few aviatrices at the time, and was acquainted with Amelia Earhart. Chatterton crisscrossed the U.S. several times solo.

Chatterton's first husband was actor Ralph Forbes; they married in the mid 1920s. From 1932 to 1934, Chatterton was married to her younger, frequent film co-star George Brent, a fellow Warners player in the 1930s. Chatteron the only Hollywood denizen who attended Sylvia of Hollywood's second wedding in 1932: the Hollywood fitness guru also married a younger man. Her third and last husband was Barry Thomson, to whom she was married from 1942 to his death in 1960. Chatterton had no children.

She died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 67 in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1961. Ruth Chatterton was cremated and is interred in a niche in the Lugar Mausoleum at Beechwoods Cemetery in New Rochelle, NY.

Occasional, much-younger co-star Bette Davis recalled that Chatterton was "very kind" to her at Warners when Davis was starting out on her career.

Chatterton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6263 Hollywood Blvd.

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