Paulette Goddard

She was introduced to millionaire playboy Edgar William James, president of the Southern Lumber Company, by her uncle Charles Goddard, whom she married in June 1927 and settled in Asheville, North Carolina.

The marriage didn’t last long and ended with a divorce in 1929, with Goddard receiving an alimony settlement amounting $375,000.

She met Charlie Chaplin in 1932 and the two hit off instantly. Their relationship became a hot topic for the media and Hollywood gossip columns.

Paulette Goddard was born as Pauline Marion Levy on June 3, 1910, in Whitestone Landing, Queens, New York, as the only child to Jewish cigar manufacturer Joseph Russell Levy and English Episcopalian Alta Mae Levy.

Her parents separated and later divorced in 1926, after which she was brought up by her mother. They had to move from New York to Canada to Kansas to escape her father’s custody.

She quit studies at an early stage to support her mother, briefly attending Mount Saint Dominic Academy at Caldwell, New Jersey, and Ursuline Academy at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

She took up modeling at the age of 10 with Saks Fifth Avenue and moved to fashion designer Hattie Carnegie as a teenager.

She made her Broadway debut as a Ziegfeld dancer in the 1926 summer revue ‘No Foolin’ and later appeared in another revue ‘Rio Rita’ in 1927. Also, she played a small role in Archie Selwyn’s ‘The Unconquerable Male’.

She moved to Hollywood in 1929 and made her screen debut as an extra in ‘Berth Marks’ (1929), ‘The Locked Door’ (1929), ‘The Girl Habit’ (1931), and ‘The Mouthpiece’ (1932).

In 1932, she played a Goldwyn Girl in Samuel Goldwyn’s ‘The Kid from Spain’ and later collaborated with Hal Roach, playing unnoticed supporting roles over the next few years.

Her contract with Roach was bought by Charlie Chaplin, who cast her in his 1936 silent film ‘Modern Days’ as the energetic ‘Gamine’, which proved as a turning point in her career.

While Chaplin wanted to work with her after the success of ‘Modern Days’ but she feared that Chaplin’s slow pace of work might put her career in danger so she signed a contract with David O. Selznick and did ‘The Young in Heart’ (1938) and appeared in two MGM movies – ‘Dramatic School’ (1938) and ‘The Women’ (1939).

The variety musical ‘Star Spangled Rhythm’, released in 1943, is counted among her best performances, where she lent her voice to the comic song ‘A Sweater, a Sarong, and a Peekaboo Bang’.

Besides ‘Kitty’ (1945), which was the most successful film of her career, she also acted in some other blockbuster movies, namely, ‘North West Mounted Police’ (1940), ‘Reap the Wild Wind’ (1942), and ‘Unconquered’ (1947).