Oscar Profile #65: Loretta Young

Born Gretchen Young in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 6, 1913 the third of three girls, her parents divorced when she was three and her mother moved them to Los Angeles where she ran a boarding house while grooming all three daughters for the movies. Little Gretchen made her screen debut at the age of four, appearing in several films that year. One was The Primrose Ring which starred Mae Murray. Murray was so taken by little Gretchen that she offered to adopt her. Her mother refused, but did allow her to live with Murray for two years where little Gretchen was a fast study in the art of acting under the expert tutelage of one of the silent screen’s biggest stars.

Answering a casting call intended for one of her sisters (either Polly Ann Young or Sally Blane) in 1927, Gretchen was given a major role in The Whip Woman with Estelle Taylor, the first film in which she appeared under her new name, Loretta Young.

Cast opposite Lon Chaney in 1928’s Laugh, Clown, Laugh, Loretta Young became a star at the age of 15. She had just turned 17 when she and Grant Withers, her 26 year-old co-star in 1930’s The Second Floor Mystery eloped. The marriage was annulled a year later.

By 1930, she was starring in films opposite the likes of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in Loose Ankles; John Barrymore in The Man from Blankley’s and Ronald Colman in The Devil to Pay! . Jean Harlow may have had the title role but Loretta had top billing in Frank Capra’s 1931 hit, Platinum Blonde.

She was just twenty when she starred opposite Spencer Tracy in Frank Borzage’s 1933 classic, Man’s Castle during which she had an affair with the 33 year-old actor. An affair with Clark Gable, her co-star in 1935’s Call of the Wild resulted in a secret pregnancy and the birth of a daughter she later adopted from an orphanage. Her daughter named Judith Young at the time of the adoption and later Judy Lewis when Young married businessman Tom Lewis in 1940, did not learn of her true parentage until she was a married woman herself.

Young had two sons with Lewis, Christopher, born in 1944, and Peter, born in 1945. Christopher was front and center of a notorious 1974 scandal when he was arrested along with thirteen other men for child pornography. Although he could have gotten life imprisonment, he got off with a $500 fine, presumably through his mother’s influence. Peter was one of the founding members of the rock group, Moby Grape.

Young remained in demand as an actress throughout the 1930s and 40s, but was never in the running for acting awards until a pair of 1947 blockbusters made everyone sit up and take renewed notice of her.

Adopting a Swedish accent for a role intended for Ingrid Bergman, Young charmed the pants off of everyone with her portrayal of the young woman who takes a job as a servant in the home of a U.S. congressman and ends up running for Congress herself in The Farmer’s Daughter opposite Joseph Cotten. That same year she had two leading men, Cary Grant and David Niven in what has become a holiday classic, the Christmas story, The Bishop’s Wife. The Bishop’s Wife was nominated for several Oscars including Best Picture while Young herself was nominated for Best Actress in The Farmer’s Daughter. To everyone’s surprise, including Young’s, she won, but no one could argue with her acceptance remark: “it’s about time!”

Two year later Young had two more well received performances in the running, the professor who becomes a stalking victim in the noir classic, The Accused and the charming nun in the Christmas fable, Come to the Stable. She was nominated for the latter.

When her film career began to wane, she became one of the first major film stars to venture into TV. Her anthology series, The Loretta Young Show, lasted eight seasons, every one of which brought her an Emmy nomination, three of them earning her the statue itself.

After a long dry spell, during which she busied herself with charitable works, Young made an acting comeback in the 1986 TV movie, Christmas Eve for which she won a Golden Globe. Another TV movie, 1989’s Lady in the Coner brought her another Globe nomination, after which was not seen professionally any more.

She spent the remainder of her life doing charitable works, including visiting the sick and dying. Having divorced her second husband in 1969, Young married fashion designer Jean Louis, who had been twice widowed, in 1993, when she was 80 and he was 85. He died four years later. Loretta Young died of ovarian cancer on August 12, 2000. Judy Lewis, her daughter with Clark Gable, died earlier this month.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LAUGH, CLOWN, LAUGH (1928), directed by Herbert Brenon

An atypical film for Lon Chaney in that it’s not a horror film, but a thoughtful mediation on the eternal triangle involving his character, Young’s character and Nils Asther’s character. Based on the legend of Pagliacci, Chaney is a sad-faced clown and Asther a laughing nobleman. Young is the young girl brought up by Chaney who is loved by both. She was only fourteen when she made the film, fifteen when it was released, but she was already a beauty and would remain one throughout her long and successful career.

MAN’S CASTLE (1933), directed by Frank Borzage

Young was just twenty when she made this film opposite Spencer Tracy, who was thirty-three at the time. He is rough and gruff, and not an especially nice fellow, but she loves him anyway. Their little shanty is enough for her. After all, it keeps her from a life of prostitution, which is seemingly her character’s only alternative in this pre-Code romantic drama. Acclaimed as one of the few films about Depression Era life that got the tone of the times just right, Tracy advanced his star status with this, but it is Young’s glowing performance that stays with you. There are nice supporting bits by Marjorie Rambeau and Glenda Farrell as well.

THE BISHOP’S WIFE (1968), directed by Henry Koster

Time has been kind to this post-World War II period piece in which an angel comes to Earth in the guise of Cary Grant to bring some cheer to the life of down-at-the-mouth Episcopalian bishop David Niven and his lovely wife, played by Young. Grant and Niven were originally cast in each other’s roles but thankfully switched as both are at their best in their respective roles. Young is also quite pleasing in hers as are the supporting players who include delightful Monty Woolley; the imperious Gladys Cooper; the kindly James Gleason and the charming Elsa Lanchester.

COME TO THE STABLE (1949), directed by Henry Koster

Young was never more at home on either the big screen or small than when playing a nun. Here she is perfectly delightful along with tennis playing fellow nun Celeste Holm in charming several disparate characters into helping to build a children’s hospital. The film’s almost defiant innocence is just what we need in these cynical times. The expert supporting cast includes Hugh Marlowe as a struggling composer; Elsa Lanchester, Oscar nominated along with Young and Holm, as an eccentric artist and Thomas Gomez as a somewhat reformed racketeer.

CHRISTMAS EVE (1986), directed by Stuart Cooper

A darker Christmas story than we might expect from the vivacious star, Young was in her 70s when she came out of retirement to play a woman not unlike herself, a once prominent woman who spent her later years helping the poor. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, she rounds up her three long gone grandchildren to spend one last holiday with their widowed father and herself. Still a handsome woman in her advanced years, Young won a Golden Globe for her performance while supporting players, Trevor Howard as her butler and Ron Leibman as her attorney were nominated for their performances as well.