Loretta Young

Loretta Young in 1935

Loretta Young (January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Early life

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. Her mother, a Catholic convert, left her unfaithful husband and headed West. Loretta and her sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (screen name Sally Blane), worked as child actresses, of which Loretta was the most successful. Young's first role was at the of 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.

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. The next year, she was anointed one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.

In 1930, Young, then only 17, ran off 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.

In 1934, Young had an affair with Clark Gable while on location for The Call of the Wild, and became pregnant. Returning from a long "vacation" (during which she secretly gave birth to a 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 Judy's autobiography Uncommon Knowledge, she first learned that Gable was her birth father from other children at school.

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.

Hosting The Loretta Young Show

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 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 point, Miss 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 Miss Young's introductions and summarized conclusions, was rerun in daytime by NBC 1960-64 and also appeared, again without the introductions and conclusions, in syndication.

Marriages and Relationships

*Married to actor Grant Withers in 1930, but it lasted only a year, and was annuled, in part because Loretta was only 17.
*Married to producer Tom Lewis in 1940. Lewis died in 1988.
*Married to fashion designer Jean Louis in 1993. Louis died in 1997.
*Involved in affairs with Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable; in 1935 she and Gable produced a daughter, known as Judy Lewis, whose legitimation required a considerable amount of ingenuity.

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 her death, she devoted herself to volunteer work for charities and churches with her friend of many years, Jane Wyman.

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.

Trivia

Country music legend Loretta Lynn was named for Loretta Young. Lynn's mother was one of Young's fans.

Filmography

The Primrose Ring (1917)
Sirens of the Sea (1917)
The Only Way (1919)
White and Unmarried (1921)
The Sheik (1921)
Naughty But Nice (1927)
Her Wild Oat (1927)
The Whip Woman (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
The Magnificent Flirt (1928)
The Head Man (1928)
Scarlet Seas (1928)
Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)
The Squall (1929)
The Girl in the Glass Cage (1929)
Fast Life (1929)
The Careless Age (1929)
The Forward Pass (1929)
The Show of Shows (1929)
Loose Ankles (1930)
The Man from Blankley's (1930)
Show Girl in Hollywood (1930) (Cameo)
The Second Floor Mystery (1930)
Road to Paradise (1930)
Warner Bros. Jubilee Dinner (1930) (short subject)
Kismet (1930)
The Truth About Youth (1930)
The Devil to Pay! (1930)
How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones No. 8: 'The Brassie' (1931) (short subject)
Beau Ideal (1931)
The Right of Way (1931)
The Slippery Pearls (1931) (short subject)
Three Girls Lost (1931)
Too Young to Marry (1931)
Big Business Girl (1931)
I Like Your Nerve (1931)
The Ruling Voice (1931)
Platinum Blonde (1931)
Taxi! (1932)
The Hatchet Man (1932)
Play-Girl (1932)
Week-end Marriage (1932)
Life Begins (1932)
They Call It Sin (1932)
Employees' Entrance (1933)
Grand Slam (1933)
Zoo in Budapest (1933)
The Life of Jimmy Dolan (1933)
Heroes for Sale (1933)
Midnight Mary (1933)
She Had to Say Yes (1933)
The Devil's in Love (1933)
Man's Castle (1933)
The House of Rothschild (1934)
Born to Be Bad (1934)
Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1934)
Caravan (1934)
The White Parade (1934)
Clive of India (1935)
Shanghai (1935)
The Call of the Wild (1935)
The Crusades (1935)
Hollywood Extra Girl (1935) (short subject)
The Unguarded Hour (1936)
Private Number (1936)
Ramona (1936)
Ladies in Love (1936)
Love Is News (1937)
Café Metropole (1937)
Love Under Fire (1937)
Wife, Doctor and Nurse (1937)
Second Honeymoon (1937)
Four Men and a Prayer (1938)
Three Blind Mice (1938)
Suez (1938)
Kentucky (1938)
Wife, Husband and Friend (1939)
The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
Eternally Yours (1939)
The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940)
He Stayed for Breakfast (1940)
The Lady from Cheyenne (1941)
The Men in Her Life (1941)
Bedtime Story (1941)
A Night to Remember (1943)
China (1943)
Show Business at War (1943) (short subject)
Ladies Courageous (1944)
And Now Tomorrow (1944)
Along Came Jones (1945)
The Stranger (1946)
The Perfect Marriage (1947)
The Farmer's Daughter (1947)
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
Rachel and the Stranger (1948)
The Accused (1949)
Mother Is a Freshman (1949)
Come to the Stable (1949)
Key to the City (1950)
You Can Change the World (1951) (short subject)
Cause for Alarm! (1951)
Half Angel (1951)
Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Awards (1951) (short subject)
Paula (1952)
Because of You (1952)
It Happens Every Thursday (1953)

References

Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows

External links

*Loretta Young at FilmReference.com
*Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Loretta Young
*Find-A-Grave profile for Loretta Young