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| Paulette Goddard (June 3, 1910[1] – April 23, 1990) was an Oscar-nominated American actress. A former child model and Ziegfield Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. Her exceptional beauty and fame led to several marriages to notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque, although she never had any children. Goddard's birth name is believed to have been Pauline Marion Levy; she was an only child, born in Whitestone Landing, Long Island, New York to a Jewish father and an Episcopalian mother. She starred with Chaplin again in his 1940 film The Great Dictator. She also made three comedies with Bob Hope: The Cat And The Canary, The Ghost Breakers, and Nothing But The Truth. She also starred in Hold Back the Dawn, three Cecil B. DeMille epics, North West Mounted Police, Reap the Wild Wind and Unconquered, and The Diary of a Chambermaid with Burgess Meredith, whom she eventually married and divorced. One of her best-remembered film appearances was in the variety musical Star Spangled Rhythm in which she sang a comic number "A Sweater, a Sarong, and a Peekaboo Bang" with her contemporary sex symbols, Dorothy Lamour and Veronica Lake. She was often paired with leading men at Paramount such as Ray Milland (in Reap the Wild Wind, Kitty, The Lady Has Plans and The Crystal Ball) and Fred MacMurray (in Standing Room Only, Suddenly It's Spring, and The Forest Rangers.) She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1944 for So Proudly We Hail!, and had some successful roles after that, but her career faded in the late 1940s. 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. In 1964 she made a comeback attempt in films with a supporting role in the Italian film Time of Indifference. Goddard was married to actor Burgess Meredith from 1944 to 1949. In 1958 she married All Quiet on the Western Front author Erich Maria Remarque. They remained married until his death in 1970. Goddard was treated for breast cancer, apparently successfully, although the surgery was very invasive and the doctor had to remove several ribs. She later settled in Ronco, Switzerland, where she died a few months before her 80th birthday following a short battle with emphysema. In her will, she left $20,000,000 (USD) to New York University (NYU), due to her friendship with Indiana-born politician and former NYU President John Brademas. Goddard Hall, an NYU freshman residence hall on Washington Square, is named for her. She is buried in Ronco cemetery in Switzerland, where her late husband, Erich Maria Remarque, is also buried. She became a fashion model as a teenager, and a member of the Ziegfeld Follies at the age of 13 or 14 in 1924. Her stage debut was in the Ziegfeld revue production No Foolin in 1926. The next year she made her stage acting debut in The Unconquerable Male. She married the Broadway writer Edgar James in 1926 or 1927, but divorced him in 1930. In 1929 she went to Hollywood after signing a contract with Roach Studios, and appeared in small parts of several films over the next few years, including roles as an uncredited extra in Chaplin's City Lights and Eddie Cantor's Kid Millions. She also joined other such notables as Betty Grable, Jeanne Gray, and Jane Wyman as Goldwyn Girls with Cantor in The Kid from Spain. In 1932, she met Charlie Chaplin in person, and began an eight year personal and cinematic relationship with him. Chaplin bought Goddard's contract from Roach Studios and cast her as a street urchin opposite his Tramp character in the 1936 film Modern Times, which made Goddard a star. During this time she lived with Chaplin in his Beverly Hills home. Their marital status was and has remained a source of controversy and speculation; Chaplin stated in his 1964 autobiography that they were married in China in 1936, but in private he claimed that they were never legally married, except in common law. Regardless, they dissolved the union amicably in 1942, and Chaplin agreed to a generous divorce settlement. Goddard began gaining star status after appearing in The Young In Heart (1938), Dramatic School (1938), and a strong supporting role in The Women (1939) which starred Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, and Rosalind Russell. During filming of The Women Goddard was considered as a finalist for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, but after several auditions, and a Technicolor screen test, lost the part to Vivien Leigh. It is believed that questions regarding her marital status with Chaplin, in that era of morals clauses, may have cost her the role. Nonetheless, in 1939 Goddard signed a contract with Paramount pictures and her next film The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, was a decisive turning point in the careers of both actors. |
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