Why is Claudette Colbert not remembered like Crawford, Davis, Hepburn, Stanwyck?

I liked her in the TV Blithe Spirt with Noel Coward and Betty Perske. Her persona wasn't bitchy enough for gay adulation, probably.

Her name doesn't roll off the tongue as easily a Bette Davis or a Vivien Leigh.

Greer Garson and Susan Hayward are two other examples who are mostly forgotten despite being the premiere leading ladies of the 40s and 50s respectively.

OP, I wonder if the younger generation knows any of those people.

Because Claudette refused to let anyone shoot her from the right side of her face.

CRAZY!

Colbert always looked the exact same to me from both sides of her face. Neither was very flattering.

Colbert was an excellent film actress and did a lot of stage work up until her retirement at quite an old age. People who enjoy classic Hollywood films will always know her.

I always recommend "The Palm Beach Story" to anyone looking for a funny film.

She only showed one side of her somewhat unmemorable face and now she seems kind of old fashioned in her movies.

Claudette and DL fav Vivian Vance in the movie, The Secret Fury.

I don't recall anyone calling her one of the greatest, OP. She could do melodrama but sparkled in screwball comedies. Jean Arthur isn't remembered like Crawford, Davis, Hepburn, or Stanwyck are either. I don't think she was a stage great either. I think her performances were probably enhanced by her movie star aura. She stayed in her lane, didn't have to go hagsploitation.

Jean Arthur retired quickly and was a notorious recluse, the American equivalent of Garbo. She's mostly just remembered now for all the Capra movies and Shane. She also only ever had 1 Oscar nomination compared to Colbert's 3 nominations and 1 win. Arthur mostly played comedic roles whereas Colbert was versatile in both drama and comedy, like Hepburn and Stanwyck.

She's so wonderful in screwball comedies. She has exactly the right touch. My favorite of all of them is "The Palm Beach Story."

I knew her—um—“best friend” Helen when I worked for Saks. This was always broadcast as platonic but everyone knew they were partners. Helen went to Barbados to stay with Claudette all the time.

Great comedic flair and very slim and stylish during her heyday.

Lesbophobia!

Horrid menstrual odor did her in.

R13

There was no vice in that relationship.

R17 is typing from the year 1899

[quote]She's been acting since the 20s

Wow. She's been acting for the past century? That must be some kind of record.

Cannot comment on Hepburn, but Davis and Crawford had several great film roles.

For Davis besides her work from 1930's through 1940's into 1950's Bette Davis came back in 1960's and knocked things out of the park with "Dead Ringer", "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte", and "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" and "The Nanny".

Joan Crawford too also had her share of memorable roles in her prime, then came back in late 1950's or so and 1960's.

Claudette Colbert was a fine actress as evidenced by her body of work, Oscar wins and nominations and so forth, but perhaps not many of roles she played are strongly memorable say way Bette Davis played Margo Channing.

That old dyke with the short neck?

I could act circles around her fat ass.

Colbert was the original choice for Margo Channing in All About Eve. Anne Baxter was chosen as Eve because of her resemblance to Claudette Colbert. Both were also favorites of Cecil B. DeMille.

Her cooter always tasted of coconut...not unpleasant but weird.

I used to read those storage locker auction notices in the back of the NY Observer, I guess I'm strange.

A few years ago (while Helen O'Hagan was still alive) three storage lockers at some facility on the Upper East Side were auctioned off with her name assigned to them as the renter. I assumed she was already dead as is often the case, but it was actually a few years before she died. I wondered at the time if they contained a treasure trove of Claudette Colbert's scripts, costumes, Oscar and memorabilia and had slipped through the cracks of Helen's estate and nobody had paid the storage bills?

Now I wonder what the hell Helen was keeping in them, and if any enterprising fan bought them up even if just to paw through their contents.

Someone upthread said her face was "unmemorable." You may not find her to be classically beautiful, but I find it hard to believe anyone would describe her look as unmemorable. Her proportions are so exaggerated, it's almost hard to look at-- she's like a cartoon character come to life. That said, she was extremely glamorous and few were better in screwball comedies than Claudette. The Palm Beach Story is one of the best ever.

[quote]Jean Arthur retired quickly

She did Peter Pan on Broadway in 1950 and had her own (unsuccessful) TV show in '66. The Freaking Out of Stephanie Blake was '67. She didn't retire for good until '75, r11.

Because she stole my goddamn pancake recipe!

[quote]Colbert was the original choice for Margo Channing in All About Eve.

Actually, r22, I was...

I can’t judge her…

I remember.

It Happened One Night is a classic and she won an Oscar for it.

She's also at her very best in "Midnight."

I love Midnight.

She’s quite charming in it, and Don Ameche is surprisingly handsome.

Claudette Colbert was "originally chosen" to play Margo Channing after a long list of other actresses either turned down role, weren't available or had other reasons for declining.

As usual fates knew what they were doing when Claudette Colbert withdrew due to injury and Bette Davis was cast as Margo Channing. Good an actress as CC was Bette Davis was Margo Channing.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!

With Davis you got Tallulah, r34, with Colbert you'd have gotten Ina Claire.

Tallulah Bankhead as Margo Channing. Now I'd have paid good money to see that.

Claudette's face and hair are very old fashioned by today's standards. She looks almost clownish. Memorable for looking oddly unusual.

It Happened One Night is excellent fun, still holds up. Sexy, adult fun with a happy ending

R38

Jane Wyman among other women clung to that Mamie Eisenhower sort of hairstyle until day they died.

Tallu would have been over the top, r37. Bette was utter perfection.

She's British, isn't she? She sounds British. Is she, like, affected or is she British?

French/American

Those bangs are awful. Davis had a much longer career and they didn't have to play Troy Donahue's mother. Stanwyck went into tv at the right time for her although she wasn't successful in it until "The Big Valley". At least Claudette didn't get stuck playing second fiddle to Trog.

"Oddly unusual"?

I always felt Alan Jay Lerner should've had Claudette Colbert in the title role Coco than Katharine Hepburn, who was awfully miscast (judging by the Tony clip I watched online).

Maybe that would've pleased Cecil Beaton.

Because she wore that same damned short “poodle” hairdo for something like 172 years!

that It Happened One Night clip above doesn't have the opening bit where Clark Gable shows her all the hitchhiking styles that sets up all the cars ignoring him.

this one is better.

Here she is being interviewed in French.

I wonder if Clark Gable ever sucked cock?

He gave great gummers.

An old rumor

Not quite the range of work- best at light comedy-

Claudette had such a short neck - she was always so careful to wear collars like the one in the R50 post to create the illusion of a longer neck.

And it looks as if she suffered from the MGM makeup practice of shaving off the female stars eyebrows and drawing them back on well above the orbital roof.

Debbie Reynolds said that MGM makeup shaved her eyebrows so often that they stopped growing back, and she had to draw them on for the rest of her life.

That seems to have happened to a lot of the MGM women stars.

^ You can also see in that photo that Lucy overlined her lips (another MGM trick), especially her upper lip, which made it look as if she'd drawn a kidney bean shape on her lips with her lipstick.

Move over, Theda and Liz...

^ that looks like some weird lesbian sex party

Should be a lesbian icon!

Colbert recalled that the milk turned to cottage cheese in her infamous DeMille bath.

Claudette & Marlene

[quote]Colbert recalled that the milk turned to cottage cheese in her infamous DeMille bath.

That happens to me when I wash my pussy in a milk bath.

R37, Tallu played Margo in a "Theatre Guild of the Air" dramatization of "All About Eve" for NBC Radio Network.

Claudette and Joanie were good friends.

Those shoes!

[quote]Claudette and Joanie were good friends.

Ha, her eyebrows were a joke!

Claudette and Joanie, 1954

I could hardly recognize the 1931 incarnation of Claudette.

Joan was very pretty.

What did the right side of her face look like? Why was she so obsessed with hiding it?

"Three Came Home" (1950) is one of my favorite World War II movies and Colbert is excellent in it.

I found it too intense as a kid, r72.

She looked middle aged even when she was young.

She hit me in the head with a fondue pot.

No one under the age of 80 has seen any of Colbert's films.

r76 -...so?

I think I read that originally she objected to doing the leg hitchhiking shot from "It Happened One Night" and they brought in a showgirl for the reveal.

After seeing the showgirl's shot, CC decided to do it herself.

You can notice that the leg shot is a separate shot from Colbert raising her skirt.

Bitch used her gams to snag an Oscar.

So.. R77, did you even read the question? Or can you not put two and two together?

r80, I'm many decades under 80 and I've seen many of Colbert's movies.

Her grandson Stephen has helped to bring a whole new generation of viewers to her ancient movies.

I think it’s because she’s not very campy compared to the others mentioned. And therefore less memorable.

I can’t think of anything she’s done that would be drag queen worthy.

Isn't this memorable enough for you fellas?

^^It was often said Colbert had the best figure on the Paramount lot after Dietrich's, so it's no wonder she got the bathing-in-asses'-milk scene in The Sign of the Cross.

[quote] "I always felt Alan Jay Lerner should've had Claudette Colbert in the title role Coco than Katharine Hepburn, who was awfully miscast (judging by the Tony clip I watched online).

I've never given it any thought, outside of the fact that Hepburn was the worst actress for the part (and in a musical!) at the time, R46. Colbert would have been wonderful as Coco Chanel!

[quote] Why is Claudette Colbert not remembered…?

Because she looks like a small toadstool.

Because she doesn't have a nose.

She's really good in It Happened One Night and she deserved the Oscar.

Joan Crawford is the one who should have second tier status.

Little Claude was OK in rom-coms but could she do drama?

[quote] "Joan Crawford is the one who should have second tier status."

She did. She always will.

Claudette was the Gwinneth Paltrau of her day.

Kate was playing Kate. No one cared about Coco Chanel.

R72

Though it is sappy as hell, mine is "Since You Went Away".

She's all but ignored in billing and credits, but my main reason for watching "Since You Went Away" was to see yet another fine performance by Hattie McDaniel.

YT to the rescue!

Dietrich dismissed Colbert as ugly and 'shopgirl French".

That was rather two-faced of Marlene...

I thought she and Claudette had rubbed tacos?

Dietrich pasted on a fake smile for the cameras, her daughter Maria Riva described Carole Lombards theme party in detail. Dietrich, didn't understand the concept of the party's theme but was shrewd enough to understand the value of good publicity in maintaining longevity in her career.

She had one memorable on set feud. With Paulette Goddard on So Proudly We Hail. Colbert, Goddard and Veronica Lake were cast in Paramount's film about WWII nurses and their heroism. Before filming started a reporter asked Goddard which co star she preferred and Paulette replied "Veronica, after all we're closer in age". Colbert went ballistic when she heard the news and the two did not get along with Colbert being extra insistent that she be filmed on her good side whenever doing a scene with Goddard. Ironically enough in truth Goddard was closer in age to Colbert than Lake.

I really love Claudette Colbert. She’s great in her comedy classics (It Happened One Night, Palm Beach Story, Midnight) and no dramatic slouch either - great in the original Imitation of Life, which just got a Criterion release. It’s sad that Colbert, a genuine comic pro, is mostly only known by film buffs while people now fall over themselves to make glorified pin-up model Marilyn Monroe out to be some comic genius. I think that Colbert not having as an iconic image/story as her fellow 30s Paramount stars Carole Lombard and Marlene Dietrich is why she’s not as remembered, as well as many of her movies not being in distribution or having good physical copies.

Also it bothers me how people take Maria Riva’s book as total gospel on here, she’s maybe slightly more reliable than BD Hyman. She managed to remember exact quotes and entire detailed conversations that happened when she was a child? Please. She comes off as extremely jealous (Riva was a failed actress, who’d have guessed) towards Marlene, and never mentioned how Marlene funded her cushy lifestyle for years. Have some balls to not take the money from your mean narcissistic mother or move on and be quiet. She also seemed more than a little homophobic towards Marlene’s largely gay male circle of friends, claiming they were “corrupting” her son when Marlene was introducing him to them as well seeming way more uncomfortable with Marlene’s lesbian relationships than her hetero dalliances.

It is a well written memoir about movie stardom, not the gospel. Riva maybe guilty of having a faulty memory but that is true about all of us.

Not I.

OP - Claudette Colbert is dead. You cannot use the present perfect here: "She's been acting since the 20s".

You're presently a perfect cunt, R105. Work on your own stick in your ass instead of correct ling others. We got what OP meant just as much as we got you're aggrandizing yourself here.

Alcaraz was injured two out of the three times that Sinner beat him.

Sorry, wrohg thread.

Yes, Goddard was closer in age (7 years apart) to Colbert than she was to Lake (12 years).

Colbert had good reason to "high hat" Ms. Levy.

No shit, r108.

R50 It's amazing how well she still spoke French, despite having been in the United States since the age of three. I'm sure that, at the time of this interview, Claudette would've described her French as "rusty," but it's actually excellent.

In comparison, Jennifer Lopez, who was raised by two Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican parents, does not speak Spanish very well at all. Claudette's parents must've been strict about her learning to speak both English and French equally well.

Another Claudette gem is The Egg and I. Maybe Ma and Pa Kettle stole the show but Claudette was charming and funny in this fish out of water story that led the way for Green Acres.

trailer

I tried to watch "Three Came Home" on YouTube.

But YT has crammed this movie, over 70 years old, so full of ridiculous ads, I gave up.

I remember reading somewhere about what reputation each studio had during Hollywood's golden age.

I don't remember many of the details, except MGM was definitely the top studio with the most high-profile stars and movies.

Some studios like RKO were considered sweat shops, churning out movies.

Paramount was known as the "Country Club" of the studios. It didn't produce as many hits or make as much money as MGM, but it was described as a nice place to work with many benefits.

R114 — get an ad blocker if you watch YT on a computer, phone or tablet. I don’t see ads on any of my devices.

R113 So, 'The Egg and I' came out before 'The King and I'?

Bull-dinky! Her real name was Lena Henny, and she was from Bumfuck, Kentucky. Just because she started eating croissants and letting her armpit hair grow out doesn't make her French! Damn phony!!!

Wasn't Lena Henny the mother of Amy Camus of Brooklyn?

The YouTube channel Be Kind Rewind did a video on Claudette Colbert and the birth of the screwball comedy.

R115, MGM was the "Tiffany Studio," specializing in lavish, top-class, star-studded musical productions and "event" spectaculars.

Paramount was the "Sophisticated Studio," specializing in screwball comedies and sophisticated comedies of manners directed by the likes of Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, and Preston Sturges.

Warner Bros specialized in gangster films and weepy melodramas, and unlike big spender Louis B Mayer, Jack Warner was a bit of a cheapskate. Insiders would joke that WB films were dimly lit to hide the cheap furniture and spartan sets.

20th Century Fox was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. The studio was forever in competition with MGM for the top spot, churning out big-budgeted musicals, historical dramas and adventure epics. But alas, they never really gained the same prestige afforded MGM.

RKO had Astaire and Rogers, Kate Hepburn, Cary Grant, etc., and they churned out some memorable classics, but the studio seemed to perpetually be in financial straits and management changes. By the time RKO folded in 1959, it was pretty much focused on b-movie productions.

How about a rundown of Poverty Row as well R121

Paramount went bankrupt during the Depression and came to be run by people from its movie theaters. It was no country club. It also was the one studio that invested in television, very early on. Unfortunately, it invested in DuMont which slowly crimbles, esp. after ABC was bought by Paramount's old theater chain.

Warner and MGM had the largest stables of contract players. Even though Warner tended toward genre films on the cheap, only MGM and uber-cheap Columbia (who fired almost everyone under contract at one point) consistently made money during the Depression.

She wasn’t particularly well-liked on sets. Even America sweetheart Shirley Temple rolled her eyes when recalled working with her. And she allegedly had a serious cat fight with another diva bitch, Miriam Hopkins when they shot an early Lubitsch film. But Arlene Francis seemed quite taken with her and I think that says a lot.

Paramount made really great movies until about 1940, I think they started to go downhill after the original heads (Zukor, etc) left and the management became different.

Also, MGM's reputation (save a handful of very good movies) is very overrated. They had the most lavish sets and costumes, but most MGM productions rang hollow on actual substance.

The great musicals were originally done by Warners - the Freed unit came at the last half of the studio system.

I always thought Colbert was odd looking. But I have enjoyed a few of her movies. I liked THE SECRET HEART, where she played the stepmother of DL fave June Allyson, who, of course was awful as the mentally disturbed daughter of Claudette’s husband in the film. Her husband was played by Walter Pidgeon.

If I'm honest, there are probably more of Colbert's films I like than Davis or Crawford (though not Hepburn or Stanwyck). But I'm a bigger fan of the comedies of the '30s and early '40s than the melodramas Davis and Crawford favored.

Noël did Blithe Spirits in 56 on TV with Lauren and Claudette.

Claudette misbehaved in a very naughty fashion.

Noël said he wanted to wring her silly neck. Unfortunately Claudette doesn't have a neck.

Melodramas all the way for me, but I can certainly see the appeal. With Kate and Barbara, you obviously got both.

Colbert didn't make iconic films like Davis and Crawford and she lacked Stanwyck's range.

My mistake. PIDGEON didn’t play June’s father but married her stepmother Colbert.

Strange and wonderful timing-- spent Friday enjoying this thread and reading Vanity Fair's article about Claudette. On Saturday, one of my favorite YouTube channels, BeKindRewind, uploaded a video detailing Claudette's journey to the Oscar for "It Happened One Night."

Stanwyck has a number of iconic films, I don't know why people act like Davis and Crawford have a million more.

Again I'll pull out this quote:

[quote]"Stanwyck may never have been as good as Davis at her best, but she was never as bad as Davis at her worst. In fact, she never gave a bad performance."

Well, I finally did it. I watched The Bride Came C.O.D. Such a flaccid screwball comedy, zero chemistry with Cagney and poor Bette just can't do comedy. Colbert, Dunne, Roz, Arthur and Stanwyck could sparkle in them. Unfortunately sparkling wasn't in Bette's wheelhouse.

She was great as Ann Margret's creepy rich mother-in-law in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles.

R135 That looks painful. I love Cagney opposite people like Joan Blondell in light fare. She's someone who's underrated from classic Hollywood as well. So funny in the pre-codes especially.

Davis didn't sparkle in All About Eve??

She was never camp, that's why. Claudette was a class act. And she never played a bad girl except for maybe The Sign of the Cross where she wasn't really bad, just slutty.

Too bad she didn't do more films in her native language. I believe she appeared in only two French films in the 50s (in rather episodic roles).

You know what, r38? I'll give you that one, but that script allowed everyone to shine. Bride/C.O.D.'s script was lousy and I just stopped paying attention at some point. What the hell is this line doing in what purports to be a screwball comedy? The line and her tonal delivery of it could be plopped into Dark Victory and not be out of place.

[quote]"I've always wondered what it's like to face death, and now I know."

^r138

Isn't Bette repeatedly falling into a cactus in that film?

Davis was clearly uncomfortable doing screwball and slapstick (It's Love I'm After also rang forced), but she could pull off comedic moments beyond what she did in AAE: The Cabin in the Cotton, The Dark Horse, Old Acquaintance, June Bride, The Catered Affair. And sometimes she seemed to overplay bad melodrama intentionally for the comedic effect.

What comedic moments are in Catered Affair? I love that movie, but it's depressing.

Bette had her moments in Catered, but she was miscast in a Thelma Ritter role. Debbie walked away with the acting honors in that.

She and Charles Boyer made three movies together in the thirties, including the hit comedy "Tovarich." They were reunited on Broadway in 1958 in "The Marriage-Go-Round," a comedy that ran for over a year and got Colbert her only Tony nomination.

[quote] Bette had her moments in Catered, but she was miscast in a Thelma Ritter role. Debbie walked away with the acting honors in that. Bette was hammy and awful playing the role that Thelma Ritter originated on stage. Debbie actually won some critics award for Best Supporting Actress. It was one of her early dramatic roles which proved that she had the chops to carry a drama and not just musicals and comedies.

[quote] Bette had her moments in Catered, but she was miscast in a Thelma Ritter role. Debbie walked away with the acting honors in that.

Bette was hammy and awful playing the role that Thelma Ritter originated on stage. Debbie actually won some critics award for Best Supporting Actress. It was one of her early dramatic roles which proved that she had the chops to carry a drama and not just musicals and comedies.

She was my favorite actress…

[quote]Why is Claudette Colbert not remembered...

She was a dyke!

And I'm just the gal who can prove it!

I always like So Proudly We Hail because Veronica Lake's character was after the "Japs" because her fiance had been killed in some big battle.

She ended up sticking two grenades in her bra and walking into a Japanese machine gun nest.

Please don’t play governess, R139. Datalounge doesn’t have your unyielding good taste. 🙄

Colbert made several French-language films in the early '30s. Foreign language versions of the American movies she was in.

WHO?

Noel Coward worked with Colbert on a stage production of BLITHE SPIRIT and they got into some sort of disagreement. Noel told her, “I’d wring your neck - if you had one!”.

R153, you’re hilarious; an apt comment to Miss R139’s piss elegance.

Also forgotten is above- mentioned Irene Dunne, who, if I remember right, could act anything thrown at her, sing and dance.

Joan Bennett to me was most memorable in her "bad girl" roles in the 1940s. Career stalled in the next decade after her jealous husband shot her agent. Bennette said if it happened twenty years later she would have a hot property. Seem to remember the roof of her house was damaged when Howard Hughes staffed it with a plane he was flying.

Claire Trevor was also very capable. Liked her "bad girls".

Debbie ended the "hagsplotation" era with What's the Matter With Helen? opposite movie set chaos-creating Shelly Winters.

New Englanders don't sparkle. We are competent. It's absolutely ridiculous that we can't post in cursive here.

YouTube put up 'It Happened One Night", free for viewing.

An excellent film.