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Loretta Young (January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.
Early life
She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah as Gretchen Young (she took the name Michaela at confirmation) she moved with her family to Hollywood when she was three years old. Loretta and her sisters Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (screen name Sally Blane) worked as child actresses, of whom Loretta was the most successful. Young’s first role was at age 3 in the silent film The Primrose Ring. The movie’s star Mae Murray so fell in love with little Gretchen that she wanted to adopt her. Although her mother declined, Gretchen was allowed to live with Murray for two years. Her half-sister Georgiana (daughter of her mother and stepfather George Belzer) eventually married actor Ricardo Montalban. During her high school years, she was educated at Ramona Convent Secondary School.
Death of Loretta young
Loretta young died of ovarian cancer at the Santa Monica, California home of her half-sister, Georgiana Montalban, and was interred in the family plot in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Loretta young was 87 years old at the time of her death
Young has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — one for motion pictures, at 6104 Hollywood Blvd, and another for television, at 6141 Hollywood Blvd.
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Career
She was billed as "Gretchen Young" in the 1917 film, Sirens of the Sea. It wasn’t until 1928 that she was first billed as "Loretta Young", in The Whip Woman. That same year she co-starred with Lon Chaney in the MGM film Laugh, Clown, Laugh.The next year, she was anointed one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.
In 1930, Young, then 17, eloped with 26-year-old actor Grant Withers and married him in Yuma, Arizona. The marriage was annulled the next year, just as their second movie together (ironically titled Too Young to Marry) was released.
Young made as many as seven or eight movies a year and won an Oscar in 1947 for her performance in The Farmer’s Daughter. The same year she co-starred with Cary Grant and David Niven in The Bishop’s Wife, a perennial favorite that still airs on television during the Christmas season and was later remade as The Preacher’s Wife with Whitney Houston. In 1949, Young received another Academy Award nomination (for Come to the Stable) and in 1953 appeared in her last film, It Happens Every Thursday.
Moving to television, she hosted and starred in the well-received half hour anthology series The Loretta Young Show. Her "sweeping" trademark appearance at the beginning of each show was to appear dramatically in various high fashion evening gowns. She returned at the program’s conclusion to restate to the viewer the moral of the story just seen. (Young’s introductions and conclusions to her television shows, which were widely satirized at the time, are not rerun on television because she had it legally stipulated that they not be; the ever image-conscious Young didn’t want to be seen in "outdated" wardrobe and hairstyles.) Her program ran in prime time on NBC for eight years, the longest-running prime time network program ever hosted by a woman up to that time.
The program, which earned her three Emmys, began with the premise that each drama was an answer to a question asked in her fan mail; the program’s original title was Letter to Loretta. The title was changed to The Loretta Young Show during the first season, and the "letter" concept was dropped altogether at the end of the second season. At this time, Young’s health required that there be a number of guest hosts and guest stars; her first appearance in the 1955-56 season was for the Christmas show. From this point on, Young appeared in only about half of each season’s shows as an actress and merely functioned as the program host for the remainder. This program, minus Young’s introductions and summarized conclusions, was rerun in daytime by NBC from 1960 to 1964 and also appeared, again without the introductions and conclusions, in syndication.
Affair with Clark Gable
In 1935, Young had an affair with Clark Gable, who was married at the time, while on location for The Call of the Wild. During their relationship, Young became pregnant. Due to the moral codes placed on the film industry Young covered up her pregnancy in order to avoid damaging her career (as well as Gable’s). Returning from a long "vacation" (during which she secretly gave birth to her daughter), Young announced that she had adopted the little girl. The child was raised as "Judy Lewis" after taking the name of Young’s second husband, producer Tom Lewis. According to Lewis’s autobiography Uncommon Knowledge, Lewis was made fun of because of the ears that she received from her father, Clark Gable. Over the years she had heard rumors and secretly knew that Clark Gable was her biological father, but it was not until 1958 when Judy’s future husband Joseph Tinney told her that "everybody" knew the rumors that she really began to suspect. It was not until a few years later, after becoming a mother herself, that she finally got the nerve to ask her mother, who, after promptly vomiting, admitted to her that Clark Gable was her father and the she was "a mortal sin."
Marriages and relationships
Married to actor Grant Withers from 1930-1931.
Married producer Tom Lewis in 1940 and they divorced very bitterly in the mid 1960s. Lewis died in 1988. They had two sons, Peter (Peter Lewis of the legendary San Francisco rock band Moby Grape) and Christopher, a film director.
Married fashion designer Jean Louis in 1993. Louis died in 1997.
Involved in affairs with Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable; in 1935, she gave birth to Gable’s daughter, who was known as Judy Lewis.
Later life
Loretta Young was the godmother of actress Marlo Thomas, whose parents (her father was Danny Thomas), were, like Young, devout Roman Catholics. From the time of Young’s retirement in the 1960s, until not long before her death, she devoted herself to volunteer work for charities and churches with her friend of many years, Jane Wyman. Young did, however, briefly come out of retirement to star in two television films, Christmas Eve (1986), and Lady in a Corner (1989). Young was the mother of Peter Lewis, guitarist and vocalist of seminal 60’s San Francisco underground rock band Moby Grape.
Young died at 87 from ovarian cancer at the Santa Monica, California home of her half-sister, Georgiana Montalban, and was interred in the family plot in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Young has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — one for motion pictures, at 6104 Hollywood Blvd, and another for television, at 6141 Hollywood Blvd.
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1917 | The Primrose Ring | Fairy |
| Sirens of the Sea | Child | |
| 1919 | The Only Way | Child on the operating table |
| 1921 | White and Unmarried | Child |
| The Sheik | Arab child | |
| 1927 | Naughty But Nice | Bit Part |
| Her Wild Oat | Bit by Ping Pong Table | |
| 1928 | The Whip Woman | The Girl |
| Laugh, Clown, Laugh | Simonetta | |
| The Magnificent Flirt | Denise Laverne | |
| The Head Man | Carol Watts | |
| Scarlet Seas | Margaret Barbour | |
| 1929 | Seven Footprints to Satan | One of Satan’s victims |
| The Squall | Irma | |
| The Girl in the Glass Cage | Gladys Cosgrove | |
| Fast Life | Patricia Mason Stratton | |
| The Careless Age | Muriel | |
| The Forward Pass | Patricia Carlyle | |
| The Show of Shows | ||
| 1930 | Loose Ankles | Ann Harper Berry |
| The Man from Blankley’s | Margery Seaton | |
| Show Girl in Hollywood | Herself, Cameo Appearance at Premiere | |
| The Second Floor Mystery | Marion Ferguson | |
| Road to Paradise | Mary Brennan/Margaret Waring | |
| Warner Bros. Jubilee Dinner | Herself | |
| Kismet | Marsinah | |
| War Nurse | Nurse | |
| The Truth About Youth | Phyllis Ericson | |
| The Devil to Pay! | Dorothy Hope | |
| 1931 | How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones No. 8: ‘The Brassie’ | Loretta (uncredited) |
| Beau Ideal | Isobel Brandon | |
| The Right of Way | Rosalie Evantural | |
| The Stolen Jools | Herself (cameo) | |
| Three Girls Lost | Norene McMann | |
| Too Young to Marry | Elaine Bumpstead | |
| Big Business Girl | Claire ‘Mac’ McIntyre | |
| I Like Your Nerve | Diane Forsythe | |
| The Ruling Voice | Gloria Bannister | |
| Platinum Blonde | Gallagher | |
| 1932 | Taxi! | Sue Riley Nolan |
| The Hatchet Man | Sun Toya San | |
| Play-Girl | Buster ‘Bus’ Green Dennis | |
| Week-end Marriage | Lola Davis Hayes | |
| Life Begins | Grace Sutton | |
| They Call It Sin | Marion Cullen | |
| 1933 | Employees’ Entrance | Madeleine Walters West |
| Grand Slam | Marcia Stanislavsky | |
| Zoo in Budapest | Eve | |
| The Life of Jimmy Dolan | Peggy | |
| Heroes for Sale | Ruth Loring Holmes | |
| Midnight Mary | Mary Martin | |
| She Had to Say Yes | Florence ‘Flo’ Denny | |
| The Devil’s in Love | Margot Lesesne | |
| Man’s Castle | Trina | |
| 1934 | The House of Rothschild | Julie Rothschild |
| Born to Be Bad | Letty Strong | |
| Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back | Lola Field | |
| Caravan | Countess Wilma | |
| The White Parade | June Arden | |
| 1935 | Clive of India | Margaret Maskelyne Clive |
| Shanghai | Barbara Howard | |
| The Call of the Wild | Claire Blake | |
| The Crusades | Berengaria, Princess of Navarre | |
| Hollywood Extra Girl | Crusades cast member | |
| 1936 | The Unguarded Hour | Lady Helen Dudley Dearden |
| Private Number | Ellen Neal | |
| Ramona | Ramona | |
| Ladies in Love | Susie Schmidt | |
| 1937 | Love Is News | Toni Gateson |
| Café Metropole | Laura Ridgeway | |
| Love Under Fire | Myra Cooper | |
| Wife, Doctor and Nurse | Ina Heath Lewis | |
| Second Honeymoon | Vickie Benton | |
| 1938 | Four Men and a Prayer | Miss Lynn Cherrington |
| Three Blind Mice | Pamela Charters | |
| Suez | Countess Eugenie de Montijo | |
| Kentucky | Sally Goodwin | |
| 1939 | Wife, Husband and Friend | Doris Borland |
| The Story of Alexander Graham Bell | Mrs. Mabel Bell | |
| Eternally Yours | Anita | |
| 1940 | The Doctor Takes a Wife | June Cameron |
| He Stayed for Breakfast | Marianna Duval | |
| 1941 | The Lady from Cheyenne | Annie Morgan |
| The Men in Her Life | Lina Varsavina | |
| Bedtime Story | Jane Drake | |
| 1943 | A Night to Remember | Nancy Troy |
| China | Carolyn Grant | |
| Show Business at War | Herself | |
| 1944 | Ladies Courageous | Roberta Harper |
| And Now Tomorrow | Emily Blair | |
| 1945 | Along Came Jones | Cherry de Longpre |
| 1946 | The Stranger | Mary Longstreet |
| 1947 | The Perfect Marriage | Maggie Williams |
| The Farmer’s Daughter | Katrin Holstrom | |
| The Bishop’s Wife | Julia Brougham | |
| 1948 | Rachel and the Stranger | Rachel Harvey |
| 1949 | The Accused | Dr. Wilma Tuttle |
| Mother Is a Freshman | Abigail Fortitude Abbott | |
| Come to the Stable | Sister Margaret | |
| 1950 | Key to the City | Clarissa Standish |
| 1951 | You Can Change the World | Herself |
| Cause for Alarm! | Ellen Jones(Brown)/Narrator | |
| Half Angel | Nora Gilpin | |
| Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Awards | Herself | |
| 1952 | Paula | Paula Rogers |
| Because of You | Christine Carroll Kimberly | |
| 1953 | It Happens Every Thursday | Jane MacAvoy |
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