Rose Hobart - Career

Career

Born in New York City, her father was a cellist in the New York Symphony. She began her career as a stage actress where, in 1929, one of her best-known roles was as Grazia, in Death Takes a Holiday.

Her first film role was the part of Julie in the first talking picture version of Ferenc Molnár's Liliom, made by Fox Film Corporation in 1930, starring Charles Farrell in the title role, and directed by Frank Borzage. She co-starred with Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins in Rouben Mamoulian's original 1931 film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She played the role of Muriel, Jekyll's fiancée. Ironically, her co-star in Dr. Jekyll and Mr, Hyde, Fredric March, starred in the 1934 film version of Death Takes a Holiday, but Ms. Hobart did not play Grazia in the film. The role went instead to Evelyn Venable.

In 1931, Hobart appeared in a B-movie called East of Borneo. In 1936, Surrealist artist Joseph Cornell, who bought a print of the movie to screen at home, became smitten with the actress, and cut out nearly all the parts that did not include her. He also showed the film at silent film speed and projected it through a blue tinted lens. He named the resulting work Rose Hobart. Hobart often played the "other woman" in movies during the 1940s, with her last major film role in Bride of Vengeance (1949).

She gave birth at age 43. During the 1950s she was investigated by the anti-Communist Tenney Committee, landed on the Hollywood blacklist and was denied acting work for years. During that time she became an acting counselor. In the 1960s, she took on television roles, including a part on Peyton Place.