EARLY DAYS PRODUCTIONS
Arthur was born Gladys Georgianna Greene on October 17, 1900 in Plattsburgh, New York to Protestant parents Johanna Augusta Nelson and Hubert Sidney Greene. She lived off and on in Westbrook, Maine from 1908 to 1915 while her father worked at Lamson Studios in Portland, Maine as a photographer. The product of a nomadic childhood, Arthur also lived at times in Jacksonville, Florida; Schenectady, New York; and, during a portion of her high school years, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan. She came from a family of three older brothers: Donald Hubert (1891), Robert B. (1892) and Albert Sidney (1894). Her maternal grandparents were immigrants from Norway who settled in the American West. She reputedly took her stage name from two of her greatest heroes, Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc) and King Arthur.
1900 - 1991
Stats:
Birth Name:
Gladys Georgianna Greene
Height: 5' 3"
Hair Color: Blonde (Bleached)
Eye Color: Dark Brown
Nickname: none found
Quote: "It's a strenuous job every day of your life to live up to the way you look on the screen.
Birth Name:
Gladys Georgianna Greene
Height: 5' 3"
Hair Color: Blonde (Bleached)
Eye Color: Dark Brown
Nickname: none found
Quote: "It's a strenuous job every day of your life to live up to the way you look on the screen.
Discovered by Fox Film Studios while she was doing commercial modeling in New York City in the early 1920s, Arthur debuted in the silent film "Cameo Kirby" (1923), directed by John Ford, and made a few low-budget silent westerns and short comedies. She was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1929, but she became stuck in ingénue roles. It was her distinctive, throaty voice – in addition to some stage training on Broadway in the early 1930s that helped make her a star in the talkies.
In 1935, at age 34, she starred opposite Edward G. Robinson in the gangster farce "The Whole Town's Talking", also directed by Ford, and her popularity began to rise. By then, her hair, naturally brunette throughout the silent film portion of her career, was bleached blonde and would stay that way. She was famous 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. Frank Capra recounted that producer Harry Cohn described Jean Arthur's imbalanced profile as "half of it's angel, and the other half horse."
For more information about Jean Arthur please visit: Wikipedia
Jean Arthur's Selected Filmography
1923 Cameo Kirby
1924 Wine of Youth
1925 Seven Chances
1926 Under Fire
1926 Mad Racer
1927 Winners of the Wilderness
1927 Masked Menace,
1928 Warming Up
1929 Canary Murder Case
1929 Stairs of Sand
1929 Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu
1929 Greene Murder Case
1929 Saturday Night Kid,
1930 Street of Chance
1930 Paramount on Parade
1930 Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
1930 Danger Lights
1930 Silver Horde
1931 Lawyer's Secre
1933 Past of Mary Holmes
1933 Get That Venus
1934 Whirlpool
1935 Whole Town's Talking
1935 Party Wire
1935 Public Hero No. 1
1935 Diamond Jim
1935 If You Could Only Cook
1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
1936 Ex-Mrs. Bradford
1936 Adventure in Manhattan
1936 Plainsman
1936 More Than a Secretary
1937 History Is Made at Night
1937 Easy Living
1938 You Can't Take It with You
1939 Only Angels Have Wings
1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
1940 Too Many Husbands
1940 Arizona Phoebe
1941 Devil and Miss Jones
1942 Talk of the Town
1943 More the Merrier
1943 Lady Takes a Chance
1944 Impatient Years
1948 Foreign Affair
1953 Shane
1924 Wine of Youth
1925 Seven Chances
1926 Under Fire
1926 Mad Racer
1927 Winners of the Wilderness
1927 Masked Menace,
1928 Warming Up
1929 Canary Murder Case
1929 Stairs of Sand
1929 Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu
1929 Greene Murder Case
1929 Saturday Night Kid,
1930 Street of Chance
1930 Paramount on Parade
1930 Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
1930 Danger Lights
1930 Silver Horde
1931 Lawyer's Secre
1933 Past of Mary Holmes
1933 Get That Venus
1934 Whirlpool
1935 Whole Town's Talking
1935 Party Wire
1935 Public Hero No. 1
1935 Diamond Jim
1935 If You Could Only Cook
1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
1936 Ex-Mrs. Bradford
1936 Adventure in Manhattan
1936 Plainsman
1936 More Than a Secretary
1937 History Is Made at Night
1937 Easy Living
1938 You Can't Take It with You
1939 Only Angels Have Wings
1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
1940 Too Many Husbands
1940 Arizona Phoebe
1941 Devil and Miss Jones
1942 Talk of the Town
1943 More the Merrier
1943 Lady Takes a Chance
1944 Impatient Years
1948 Foreign Affair
1953 Shane
Full Movie: The More the Merrier (1943)
During the WW2 housing shortage in Washington, two men and a woman share a single apartment and the older man plays Cupid to the other two. - Taken from IMDB
The turning point in Jean Arthur's career came when she was chosen by director Frank Capra to star in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town". Capra had spotted her in a daily rush from the film "Whirlpool" in 1934 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. Arthur co-starred in three celebrated 1930s Capra films: her role opposite Gary Cooper in 1936 in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" made her a star, while her fame was cemented with "You Can't Take It With You" (1938) and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" in 1939, both with James Stewart. She was re-teamed with Cooper, playing Calamity Jane in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Plainsman" (1936), and appeared as a working girl, her typical role, in Mitchell Leisen's 1937 screwball comedy "Easy Living" opposite Ray Milland. So strong was her box office appeal by 1939 that she was one of four finalists that year for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind"; the film's producer, David O. Selznick, had briefly romanced Arthur in the late 1920s when they both were with Paramount Pictures.
She continued to star in films such as Howard Hawks' Only "Angels Have Wings" in 1939, with love interest Cary Grant, 1942's "The Talk of the Town", directed by George Stevens (also with Grant), and again for Stevens as a government clerk in 1943's "The More the Merrier", for which Jean Arthur was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress (losing to Jennifer Jones in "The Song of Bernadette"). As a result of being in the doghouse 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 Ronald 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 reigning queen. Stevens famously called her "one of the greatest comediennes the screen has ever seen", while Capra credited her as "my favorite actress".
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!" 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 she appeared in. Jean Arthur died from heart failure at the age of 90.
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!" 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 she appeared in. Jean Arthur died from heart failure at the age of 90.
Early Days Productions: Jean Arthur 04/25/2012
