Paulette Goddard - Career

Career

Her stage debut was in the Ziegfeld revue No Foolin in 1926, and played a small role in Rio Rita. The next year she made her stage acting debut in The Unconquerable Male. She changed her first name to Paulette and took her mother's maiden name as her own surname. She married an older, wealthy businessman, lumber tycoon Edgar James, in 1926 or 1927, and moved to North Carolina. Goddard returned to Hollywood in 1929, and she and James later divorced.

Upon her return to Hollywood, with her mother, Goddard appeared in small roles in The Girl Habit (1931) and The Mouthpiece (1932). She signed a contract with Hal Roach Studios, and appeared in films such as The Kid from Spain and Laurel and Hardy's Pack Up Your Troubles (both 1932). In 1932, she met Charlie Chaplin. Goddard was considering investing the money from her divorce settlement in a film venture but Chaplin intervened when he discovered the deal was fraudulent, and bought out her contract from Roach. Chaplin began planning a film with Goddard that was released in 1936 as Modern Times, the first film in which she had a credited role. In the interim, Goddard appeared in a few films for Samuel Goldwyn Productions. Along with such actresses as Betty Grable, Lucille Ball, and Ann Sothern, Goddard became a "Goldwyn Girl" in films such as Roman Scandals (1933) and Kid Millions (1934). During this time she lived with Chaplin in his Beverly Hills home. Their marital status was a source of controversy and speculation. During most of their time together, both refused to comment on the matter. Chaplin maintained they were married in China in 1936, but to private associates and family, he reportedly claimed they were never legally married, except in common law.

Following the success of Modern Times, Chaplin planned other projects with Goddard in mind as a co-star, but he worked slowly and Goddard worried that the public might forget about her if she did not continue to make regular film appearances. She signed a contract with David O. Selznick and appeared with Janet Gaynor in the comedy The Young in Heart (1938) before Selznick loaned her to MGM to appear in two films. The first of these, Dramatic School (1938), costarred Luise Rainer, but the film received mediocre reviews and failed to attract an audience. Her next film, The Women (1939), was a success. With an all-female cast headed by Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Rosalind Russell, Goddard played the supporting role of Miriam Aarons. Pauline Kael would later comment of Goddard, "she is a stand-out. She's fun."

Selznick had been pleased with Goddard's recent performances, and specifically her work in The Young at Heart, and considered her for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. Initial screen tests convinced him and the director George Cukor that Goddard would require coaching to be effective in the role, but that she showed promise, and she was the first actress given a Technicolor screen test. Russell Birdwell, the head of Selznick's publicity department, had strong misgivings about Goddard. He warned Selznick of the "tremendous avalanche of criticism that will befall us and the picture should Paulette be given this part… I have never known a woman, intent on a career dependent upon her popularity with the masses, to hold and live such an insane and absurd attitude towards the press and her fellow man as does Paulette Goddard… Briefly, I think she is dynamite that will explode in our very faces if she is given the part." Selznick remained interested in Goddard and after he had been introduced to Vivien Leigh, he wrote to his wife that Leigh was a "dark horse" and that his choice had "narrowed down to Paulette, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Vivien Leigh"

After a series of tests with Leigh that pleased both Selznick and Cukor, Selznick cancelled the further tests that had been scheduled for Goddard, and the part was given to Leigh. It has been suggested that Goddard lost the part because Selznick feared questions surrounding her marital status with Chaplin would result in scandal. However, Selznick was aware that Leigh and Laurence Olivier lived together as their respective spouses had refused to divorce them, and in addition to offering Leigh a contract, he engaged Olivier as the leading man in his next production Rebecca (1940). Chaplin's biographer Joyce Milton wrote that Selznick was worried about legal issues by signing her to a contract that might conflict with her preexisting contracts with the Chaplin studio.

Goddard signed a contract with Paramount Pictures and her next film The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, was a turning point in the careers of both actors. She starred with Chaplin again in his 1940 film The Great Dictator. The couple split amicably soon afterward, and Goddard allegedly obtained a divorce in Mexico in 1942, with Chaplin agreeing to a generous settlement. She was Fred Astaire's leading lady in the musical Second Chorus (1940), where she met her third husband, actor Burgess Meredith. One of her best-remembered film appearances was in the variety musical Star Spangled Rhythm (1943), in which she sang a comic number, A Sweater, a Sarong, and a Peekaboo Bang, with Dorothy Lamour and Veronica Lake.

She received one Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, for the 1943 film So Proudly We Hail!, but did not win. Her most successful film was Kitty (1945), in which she played the title role. In The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), she starred opposite Meredith, whom she soon divorced. Cecil B. DeMille cast her in three blockbusters: North West Mounted Police (1940), Reap the Wild Wind (1942) (where Goddard played a Scarlett O'Hara-type role), and Unconquered (1947). Her career faded in the late 1940s.

In 1947 she made An Ideal Husband in Britain for Alexander Korda films, being accompanied on a publicity trip to Brussels by Clarissa Churchill, niece of Sir Winston and future wife of Prime Minister Anthony Eden. In 1949, she formed Monterey Pictures with John Steinbeck. Her last starring roles were the English production A Stranger Came Home (known as The Unholy Four in the USA), and Charge of the Lancers in 1954. She also acted in summer stock and on television, including in the 1955 television remake of The Women, playing a different character than she played in the 1939 feature film. In 1964, she attempted a comeback in films with a supporting role in the Italian film, Time of Indifference, which turned out to be her last feature film. After her fourth husband Erich Maria Remarque's death in 1970, she made one last attempt at acting, when she accepted a small role in an episode of The Snoop Sisters (1972) for television.