Ruth Chatterton had more than one string to her bow. In her lifetime, she acted on stage and in movies, piloted planes and wrote novels. In 1930, she was 'The First Lady of the Screen'. When she starred in her first talkie in 1929, she was already 37. She understood that the advent of sound would work in her favour and declared: 'Youth and beauty never had such a fling as it did in the movies. But that day is gone. A pretty girl is easy to look at, but mighty hard to listen to for very long'. Unfortunately, her reign as a movie queen only lasted a few years. Ironically, her last Hollywood film, Dodsworth (1936), turned out to be her best.
American postcard by Kraus Mfg. Co., New York. Advertisement for Plexo Creams.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4316/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.
A privileged childhood
Ruth Chatterton was born on the 2nd of December 1892 in New York, U.S.A.
Her parents were
Walter Chatterton and
Lilian Reed. Lilian’s father,
Andrew Reed and maternal grandfather,
Rodney Lugar, had made good in the shipbuilding business.
Ruth spent a privileged and spoiled childhood in Andrew Reed’s large estate in Fordham Heights. She played piano, learned French and was passionate about literature.
Ruth’s parents were not the best as far as financial matters were concerned, and they both declared bankruptcy in 1904. Lilian’s mother passed away in 1905, and
Andrew Reed followed his wife to the grave in 1906. Ensuing inheritance brought the Chattertons a brief respite.
Unfortunately, in 1907, Walter had money troubles again and was charged with default taxes. Ruth’s parents separated, and she was sent to Washington to live with her maternal aunt. Lilian, who had carelessly spent most of her inheritance, soon joined her daughter.
French postcard by Cinémagazine, Paris, no. 832. Photo: Paramount.
Henry Miller
Resolute to financially help her mother,
Ruth Chatterton embarked on a stage career in 1909 and benefited from the help of famous actress
Julia Dean, who befriended her, gave her good advice and provided her with costumes she didn’t use anymore.
In October 1911, she appeared for the first time on Broadway in 'The Great Name', which lasted 21 performances.
She got her big break in 1912 when she was chosen to be renowned actor and manager
Henry Miller’s leading lady in 'The Rainbow'. A young girl who could sing, play piano and speak French had been needed for the role, and Ruth fit the bill.
The play opened on Broadway on the 11th of March and closed in June after 104 performances. Ruth scored a big personal success and got good reviews.
Henry Miller, 33 years her senior, fell in love with her and the two were professionally and privately linked for about 10 years.
After a triumphant tour with 'The Rainbow', Miller decided to offer his protegee the opportunity to prove she could carry a play alone and asked author
Jean Webster to adapt her book 'Daddy Long Legs' for the stage. It was a huge hit, and Ruth played it on Broadway for 264 performances, starting in September 1914. She was now a full-fledged star.
British autographed postcard in the Celebrity Series, no 147, by Associated Photo Printers, London. Photo: Paramount Pictures.
A Broadway stalwart
Henry Miller then produced and directed another successful Broadway play for
Ruth Chatterton, 'Come Out of the Kitchen', which had a run of 224 performances from October 1916 to May 1917. After it closed, she appeared in three plays with Miller in San Francisco.
In April 1918, he opened his own theatre on Broadway. Ruth played there for the first time in 'Perkins', opposite Miller, which was a flop. A tour in 'A Marriage of Convenience' turned out to be much more rewarding for the twosome.
In 1918, she received an interesting offer to appear in films but declined because it didn’t give her script approval.
Back at the Henry Miller Theatre, Ruth starred in 'Moonlight and Honeysuckle' from September to December 1919. Then, against Miller’s wishes, Ruth decided to act in
James Barrie’s 'Mary Rose'. She seems to have been right, as it played for 127 performances on Broadway from December 1920 to April 1921 and was thereafter successfully taken on tour.
In 1922, Ruth and
Henry Miller were reunited on stage in French author
Henry Bataille’s 'La Tendresse', which had been translated into English by the star herself. The play was about the relationship between a young actress and a much older married playwright. This story must have struck a chord with Ruth, as it was echoing her own private life.
British postcard in the Famous Cinema Stars series by Beagles, no. 71. U.
A declining stage star
The last time
Ruth Chatterton and
Henry Miller played together was in 'The Changelings', which had a run of 127 Broadway performances from September 1923 to January 1924.
The pair then decided to adapt 'Come Out of the Kitchen' into a musical-comedy version, rebaptised 'The Magnolia Lady'. Ruth chose
British actor Ralph Forbes as her leading man. They fell in love.
'The Magnolia Lady' lasted only 47 performances from the 25th of November 1924 to the 3rd of January 1925. Most critics agreed that Ruth’s talents were not suited to musicals. During the run of 'The Magnolia Lady',
Henry Miller opened on the 5th of December in 'The Man in Evening Clothes', which had been translated by Ruth from
André Picard and
Yves Mirande’s French play 'Un homme en habit'. It was not a success and closed after 11 performances.
Ruth and
Ralph Forbes married on the 20th of December 1924. Following the wedding, a deeply hurt
Henry Miller announced his decision to retire from the stage. He only came back in February 1926, but passed away in April.
In 1925, Ruth had two Broadway flops in a row, opposite
Ralph Forbes, with 'The Little Minister' and 'The Man With a Load of Mischief', which both lasted only 16 performances. Her stage career was floundering.
British postcard in the Film Partners series by Picturegoer, no. PC24.
Ruth Chatterton and
Paul Lukas in
The Right to Love (Richard Wallace, 1930).
Cinema comes to her rescue
In 1926,
Ralph Forbes went to Hollywood to appear in Paramount’s
Beau Geste. His performance got him an MGM contract.
On the West Coast,
Ruth Chatterton starred in two plays: 'The Green Hat', which was well-received, and 'The Devil’s Plum Tree', which wasn’t.
A fading theatre star, she found herself in a difficult situation and was desperate to find work. Cinema would come to her rescue.
She screen-tested for
Josef von Sternberg’s
The Docks of New York (1928), but
Olga Baclanova got the part instead.
Fortunately,
Emil Jannings saw her test and chose her to play his slutty, harsh and calculating second wife in the silent
Sins of the Fathers (1928). It was an impressive film debut. Paramount liked her and offered her a contract.
British postcard by Picturegoer, no. 429a.
The First Lady of the Screen
The advent of talkies proved the turning point in her career.
Ruth Chatterton had presence, experience, talent and a trained voice. She was in the right place at the right moment.
Her first talkie was
The Doctor’s Secret (1929). A critic wrote: "Of the women who, to date, have tried delivering in the talkies, she stands first and foremost". Her next one,
The Dummy (1929), was a bit of a setback as
Zasu Pitts, playing a jittery kidnapper, ran away with the picture.
She was then loaned to M.G.M. for one of her great achievements in
Madame X (1929), a famous mother-love story. It had Ruth playing a fallen woman committing a crime and being defended on trial by a young lawyer, who is unaware he is her son. She was nominated for an Oscar but lost out to
Mary Pickford in
Coquette (1929). A sophisticated comedy,
Charming Sinners (1929), adapted from
Somerset Maugham’s play 'The Constant Wife', followed.
When
Jeanne Eagels’s health problems forced her to withdraw from
The Laughing Lady (1929), adapted from a 1923
Ethel Barrymore stage vehicle, Ruth replaced her. It had been filmed before with
Gloria Swanson in 1924 under the title A Society Scandal.
Dorothy Arzner’s
Sarah and Son (1930), another mother-love weepie, gained her a second Oscar nomination, but
Norma Shearer won for
The Divorcee. Then came
The Lady of Scandal (1930), which she made on loan to M.G.M. Back at Paramount, she got excellent notices for the box office hits
Anybody’s Woman (1930), again directed by
Dorothy Arzner, and
The Right to Love (1930), giving a dual characterisation as mother and daughter. Her position as 'The First Lady of the Screen' was now established.
Canadian postcard in the Artists of the Camera series by McKenzie & Marlow, Vancouver.
Ruth Chatterton in
Once a Lady (Guthrie McClintic, 1931).
Last Paramount Pictures
In January 1931, filming wrapped up on Unfaithful. That same month, the press, much to Paramount’s dismay, announced
Ruth Chatterton would soon sign with Warner, which wanted to add some class and prestige to their female star roster. In March,
Unfaithful was released. As her current contract still had several months to go, Ruth had to stay at Paramount for three more pictures.
The Magnificent Lie (1931) was a disappointment. Ruth complained that the touching story by
Leonard Merrick had been too altered. An earlier version,
Fool’s Paradise (1921), directed by
Cecil B. DeMille, had fared much better.
Once a Lady (1931) was a remake of a 1928
Pola Negri melodrama,
Three Sinners, and proved another undistinguished offering.
Ruth personally selected a 1931
Philip Barry’s Broadway hit for her last Paramount film.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1932) got mixed reviews, but she herself considered it one of her favourite roles.
In the first half of 1932, alongside her screen work, she produced and directed on the West Coast the play 'Let Us Divorce', starring
Ralph Forbes.
British postcard in the Colourgraph series by Picturegoer, London, no. C63.
Mixed results at Warner
Ruth Chatterton's lucrative Warner contract was officially signed in September 1931. Her stay started with
The Rich Are Always with Us (1932), which dealt with philandering in high society. She fell in love with her leading man,
George Brent, and married him on the 13th of August 1932, the day after her divorce from
Ralph Forbes had been finalised. Warner reunited them in
The Crash (1932), again about philandering, only this time with a stock market background. Famous
New York Times critic
Mordaunt Hall termed the film "scarcely a stimulating piece of work", deplored "many shortcomings", and complained about "sadly amateurish dialogue".
As her first two Warner films hadn’t met the expected success, the company reckoned that stories revolving around infidelity and divorces had started tiring the audiences and assigned Ruth to less sophisticated fare. In the melodrama
Frisco Jenny (1932), she played a tough prostitution, gambling, and bootlegging ring leader who, in the best
Madame X tradition, is eventually sentenced to death by her son, who doesn’t know she’s his mother.
Frisco Jenny was the biggest box office hit of her Warner career.
Ruth was teamed with
George Brent in her next two films. First came
Lilly Turner (1933), adapted from a short-lived 1932 Broadway play which had been labelled as "barely plausible" by
Time Magazine and as "a rag-bag play" and "three acts of aimless trivialities" by
The New York Times. The screen adaptation drew the same kind of negative comments from quite a few film critics.
In
Female (1933), she played a powerful woman executive who regularly sleeps with her male employees, with no sentimental feelings. At one time, her character declares: "I decided to drive the same open road that men travel. So I treat men the exact way they’ve always treated women". Despite a conservative ending showing the heroine becoming a compliant lady who yearns for married life and children, it was enjoyable pre-code stuff.
But audiences had begun to lose interest in Ruth, and
Kay Francis had taken over from her as Queen of the Warner lot thanks to several box office hits. In 1934, she filed for divorce from
George Brent and got the final decree the next year.
Spanish postcard by Dümmatzen, no. 313. Photo: Warner Bros / First National.
Aviatrix
Her Warner contract ended with
Journal of a Crime (1934), which
G.W. Pabst was originally assigned to direct. He was replaced by
William Keighley, and the film didn’t relaunch her fading career.
It didn’t really matter to her as she had found a new interest in aviation. In April 1935, she was awarded a private pilot’s licence and, in May, she completed her first coast-to-coast flight.
In 1935 and 1936, she sponsored the Ruth Chatterton Air Derby, open to female and male contestants, which would reward the aviators who could navigate and pilot their aircraft the most accurately.
She came back on screen at Columbia in
Lady of Secrets (1936), another routine mother-love story. This time, Ruth’s biological daughter, born out of wedlock when she was 16, has been raised as her sister to protect the family from scandal. Ruth would never reveal the truth to the young girl, but she helped her to find happiness in her private life.
The film got unfavourable reviews such as "No wonder she took up aviation" and "It would be advisable for Miss Chatterton to stick to her flying and derby races".
Cigarette card in the Beauties of To-Day series. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
At her best in Dodsworth
Ruth Chatterton was then hired by 20th Century Fox for
Girl’s Dormitory (1936).
It was the American film debut of French actress
Simone Simon, who was then given a big build-up. Zanuck favoured her and even changed the original ending, allowing Simone to win
Herbert Marshall’s love instead of Ruth.
Simone Simon got the lion’s share in
Girls' Dormitory’s publicity campaign. A philosophical Ruth declared: "I don’t mind. She’s young. Let her have her chance".
She probably got the best role of her career, to high praise, as a shallow, self-centred, and age-fearing wife in
Dodsworth (1936), produced by
Samuel Goldwyn and directed by
William Wyler.
The fact that she was not nominated for an Oscar raised some eyebrows. Famous columnist
Jimmie Fiedler wrote: "The failure to include
Ruth Chatterton as a 1936 performance nominee was a shame that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will never live down". Unfortunately, Ruth, then a freelance actress, probably didn’t benefit from the right connections and lobbying.
British postcard by Valentine’s in the Film Stars and Their Pets series, no. 7113H.
Back to the stage
In 1937,
Ruth Chatterton left for England and made her London stage debut in
Somerset Maugham’s 'The Constant Wife'. Famous British film producer
Herbert Wilcox also starred her in
The Rat (1937) and
A Royal Divorce (1938), as Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, which marked the end of her movie career. In 1939, as the political situation in Europe was becoming increasingly tense, she returned to the U.S.A.
She came back on stage in Boston in 'West of Broadway'. In May 1939, during the brief run of 'The Affairs of Anatol' in Maplewood, she fell in love with her male partner,
Barry Thomson. It’s unclear if the two were ever legally married. Ruth’s niece,
Olive Wehbring, expressed doubts about it. Anyway, they were a devoted couple until Thomson passed away in 1960.
Ruth continued her stage career until 1960. Among the plays she favored were
Noel Coward’s 'Private Lives' (in 1940, 1942, 1943 and 1944), Sil-Vara’s 'Caprice' (in 1941, 1943, 1946 and 1947),
Lillian Hellman’s 'The Little Foxes' (in 1947, 1948, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1956 and 1958) and
Terence Ratigan’s 'O Mistress Mine' (in 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1957). On Broadway, she had two flops in 'Leave Her to Heaven' (15 performances in 1940) and 'Second Best Bed' (8 performances in 1946).
On the 22nd of October 1946, she took over the role of 'The Speaker' in 'A Flag is Born', produced by the 'American League For a Free Palestine', which raised funds to help Jewish people to get to what would become Israel in 1948. The play, which had opened on Broadway on the 5th of September 1946, closed on the 14th of December and made a sizeable profit for the crusade to establish a Hebrew Homeland. Ruth had begun to be involved in the Jewish cause during World War II. She appeared on Broadway for the last time in a two-week revival of 'Idiot’s Delight' in 1951.
Ruth, who had been regularly performing on the radio since the 1930s, also tried her hand at the small screen. From 1948 to 1953, she acted in several TV movies, the most notable being the prestigious 'Hamlet', as Queen Gertrude, for NBC in 1953.
British postcard in the Film Scene series by Picturegoer, no. FS 93. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
Ruth Chatterton and
Herbert Marshall in
Girls Dormitory (Irving Cummings, 1936).
Her writing career
At the end of the 1940s,
Ruth Chatterton tackled a new challenge: writing.
Her first novel, 'Homeward Borne', was released in 1950 and hit the
New York Times best-seller list. It was about a European Jewish war orphan adopted by an American couple. Plans to make it into a film failed. It was finally adapted for TV in a 1957 episode of the popular CBS anthology drama series
Playhouse 90, with
Linda Darnell as the adoptive mother.
Three other novels were published: 'The Betrayers' (1953) was an attack on McCarthyism, 'The Pride of the Peacock' (1954) was a 'marital-problemer' and 'The Southern Wild' (1958) concerned the race problem in the South, pleading for Integration.
She also wrote a short ghost story, 'Lady’s Man', which was incorporated into 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories For Late At Night', published in August 1961.
She was completing her fifth novel when she died from a brain haemorrhage on the 24th of November 1961.
British postcard by Picturegoer, no. 429d. Photo: United Artists.
Text and postcards: Marlene Pilaete.
