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Gloria Stuart
Stuart in 1937
Born
Gloria Stewart

(1910-07-04)July 4, 1910
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
DiedSeptember 26, 2010(2010-09-26) (aged 100)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of deathEffects of lung cancer
EducationUniversity of California, Berkeley
Occupation(s)Actress, artist
Spouse(s)Blair Gordon Newell
(1930–1934; divorced)
Arthur Sheekman
(1934–1978; his death)
ChildrenSylvia Vaughn Thompson

Gloria Stewart, known as Gloria Stuart, (July 4, 1910 – September 26, 2010) was an American actress, artist, fine printer, poet and bonsai master. She had a Fourth-of-July birthday, one hundred of them.

Gloria began her acting career in the theater. In the 1930s and 1940s, she performed in little theater and summer stock on both coasts. Her career in the movies spanned from 1932 to 2004--with a twenty-nine year break. Her iconic film role was the 100-year-old Old Rose in the Academy Award-winning film Titanic. In recognition of this work, she was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. At eighty-seven + years she was the oldest person to be nominated in a supporting role up to that time.

Early life (1910-1931)

Here with James Cagney from the 1934 film Here Comes the Navy filmed on the USS Arizona.

Gloria Stewart [1] was born at eleven o'clock at night on the dining table at home in Santa Monica, California.[2] She was a third-generation Californian. Gloria's grandmother, Alice Vaughan, was born in Angels Camp, California, gold country, and her mother, Alice Diedrick, was born in Selma in the San Joaquin Valley, daughter of a blacksmith.[3] Gloria's father, Frank Stewart, was born in Washington state.[4] A stern handsome Scot, Stewart was an attorney representing The Six Companies, Chinese tongs in San Francisco.[5]

Gloria's brother, Frank Jr.,[6] was born eleven months later. In two years, Gloria and Frank were joined by their brother Thomas, but Thomas Stewart died of spinal meningitis when he was three.[7]

When Gloria was nine years old, her father, who had been appointed a judge and was about to take the bench, was hit by a car and died of his injuries.[8] Hard-pressed to support two small children, Alice soon accepted the proposal of Fred J. Finch, a local businessman with oil leases in Texas. Gloria's and Frank's half-sister, Patricia Marie Finch, was born in 1924.[9] Gloria went through school as Gloria Fae Finch.[10] Since her parents did not give her a middle name, she often adopted one...sometimes it was Frances, the feminine of her father's name. Her brother also took their stepfather's name (and also gave himself a middle name: he is Frank Theo Finch in the 1928 Santa Monica High School yearbook). Frank suffered an attack of poliomyelitis when he was one year old. [11] As a consequence, all his life he had to wear a leg brace and built-up shoe and he limped heavily. But resourceful and bright, Frank became a staff sportswriter at the Los Angeles Times. He followed the Los Angeles Dodgers from practice days to their last game and wrote about the team with affection. The Times described Frank Finch as "one of the most colorful sportswriters in Los Angeles."[12]

Acting and writing

When Gloria was eight, she wrote a play with a starring role for herself, then performed it in the back yard for her family and neighbors. It was 1918 and her mother charged admission of knitted wash cloths for the soldiers overseas.[13]

At Santa Monica High School, Gloria acted in plays, had the lead in her senior class play, The Swan.[14] She loved writing as much as she loved acting. As a girl, she began her custom of filling notebooks and scrapbooks with poetry and literary excerpts. She spent her last two summers in high school taking classes in short story and poetry writing[15] while working as a cub reporter for the Santa Monica Outlook.[16]

At the University of California at Berkeley, Gloria majored in philosophy and drama, appeared in more plays, worked on the Daily Californian,[17] contributed to the campus literary journal, Occident, and posed as an artist's model. She never had any money because her stepfather did not support her choices. Her mother had to borrow Gloria's tuition and room and board from an old friend of Frank Stewart's.[18] So for pocket money, Gloria posed for artists. She noted in her book, "What a daring thing to do! Gloria Stuart, posing naked in a San Francisco artist's studio--me a member of the Santa Monica haute bourgeoisie! I luxuriated in the idea...Ah! La vie bohème!"[19] Rebelliousness was in Gloria's bones. In the third grade, Gloria kicked her teacher in the backside and was expelled from Roosevelt School.[20] In Santa Monica High School, she relished having the highest number of demerits of any student in the school's history. "I always hated being ordinary..."[21]

It was in Berkeley that she began signing her name, Gloria Stuart. She decided that the six letters of Stuart would look better on a marquee than the seven letter's of her father's name.[22]

Gloria wrote fondly that her mother was a superb cook and "...gave our family a lovely calendar of celebratory days."[23] Gloria inherited Alice's gifts and at Berkeley began her lifelong love affair with cooking and entertaining. Once, the luscious blonde co-ed was invited with friends to the house of guest lecturer J. Robert Oppenheimer. The professor served a hot curry dinner. Gloria was impressed--and she impressed him. Oppenheimer invited her to dinner and a concert in San Francisco.[24] I Dated Oppenheimer was the title of Gloria's last miniature artist's book.

A Bohemian life in Carmel (1930-1932)

At the end of her junior year, in June, 1930, Gloria married Blair Gordon Newell,[25] a young sculptor who had apprenticed with Ralph Stackpole on the facade of the San Francisco Stock Exchange building.[26] The Newells moved to Carmel where there was a stimulating community of artists and movers and shakers such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Robinson Jeffers and Lincoln Steffens and his wife Ella Winter.

Gloria acted at the Theatre of the Golden Bough and worked on The Carmelite newspaper. She set the Linotype machine, handled the billing and wrote everything from local gossip to interviews with celebrities to reviews of art, theater, books and music.[27] She was not above giving herself a good review and she published her poetry under her grandmother's name. Once when Gordon had to be away for some days, she wrote him a poem, You Are Gone Now. Some years later, the German tenor Richard Tauber set her poem to music and had it published.[28] In her spare time she hand-sewed aprons, patchwork pillows and tea linens and created bouquets of dried flowers for a local tea shop where she also waited on tables when needed.[29] Gordon laid brick, chopped and stacked wood, taught sculpture and woodworking, patched together all the odd jobs he could muster. They were tireless and constantly broke.[30]

Hollywood--first pass (1931-1939)

Gloria Stuart, fourth from left, top row, with the rest of the 1932 WAMPAS Baby Stars.

Gloria's theater work in Carmel brought her to the attention of Gilmore Brown's Play Box, a prestigious little theater in Pasadena. She was invited there to appear as Masha in Chekhov's The Seagull.[31] Opening night, casting directors from Paramount and Universal were in the audience. Both came backstage to arrange a screen test, both studios claimed her. A friend's agent was brought in to represent Gloria but was bungling. Finally the studios simply flipped a coin. Universal won the toss and the beauty.[32] Gloria felt she would be slumming in movies--she considered herself a serious actress in The Theater. But she and Gordon had so struggled that she decided to sign a contract.

On the set, Gloria was dependable, hard-working, cheerful and generous. Despite her fine qualities, that coin toss between Universal and Paramount did not bring her the best luck. Universal, headed by Carl Laemmle, Jr., was not one of the studios that groomed its stars--no lessons in movement, singing, dancing, no coaching in voice or performance technique. Without such support and polishing, Gloria's natural gifts only carried her to the A-/B+ level.

Gloria does not mention it in her book, but the Internet Movie Database includes her with thirty other players (including the cowboy star, Tom Mix) in a slapstick comedy, The Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood, A Behind-the-Scenes Farce.[33] Produced by Universal in the spring of 1932, this is likely Gloria Stuart's first appearance before the camera.

Gloria's movie career began playing a decorous ingénue confronting her father's mistress, the sophisticated Kay Francis, in Street of Women,[34] a Pre-Code fallen-women film ("Is love ever a sin?").[35] Gloria's second turn, again playing the ingénue, was in a forgettable football-hero movie, The All-American.[36]

Gloria's career advanced when James Whale, the gifted English director, chose her for the glamour role in his stellar ensemble cast[37] for The Old Dark House. The year before, Whale's Frankenstein was pronounced by the influential New York Times movie critic, Mordaunt Hall, as "...undoubtedly the best spine-chiller that has been presented in all time on the screen."[38]


Her career with Universal was disappointing. She moved to 20th Century Fox, and by the end of the decade had appeared in more than forty films, including Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1935 and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She appeared alongside such stars as Lionel Atwill, Lionel Barrymore, Freddie Bartholomew, Warner Baxter, James Cagney, Eddie Cantor, Melvyn Douglas, Boris Karloff, Paul Lukas, Raymond Massey, Pat O'Brien, Al Pearce, Dick Powell, Claude Rains, the Ritz Brothers, Shirley Temple and Lee Tracy.

Personal life

In 1934, Stuart and Newell divorced amicably and she married screenwriter Arthur Sheekman, one of the writers on Roman Scandals. Sheekman was Groucho Marx's best friend and was collaborating (sometimes without credit) on Marx Brothers films. Later, Sheekman ghostwrote several of Marx's books; Marx called him "The Fastest Wit in the West". The Sheekmans' daughter, Sylvia, was born in 1935. Four years later, Stuart convinced her husband they should travel around the world. When they reached France, they tried to volunteer for the French Resistance, but were turned down, so they caught the last American ship sailing to New York.[39]

They decided to stay in New York and work in the theater. In the next few years, Sheekman wrote several plays (two directed by George S. Kaufman) and Stuart got roles in summer stock, including Emily to Thornton Wilder's Stage Manager in Our Town. When Sheekman's third play flopped, they returned to Hollywood, and he was hired by Paramount Pictures. Stuart toured the country entertaining the troops in hospitals and selling war bonds.

In 1943, the Sheekmans moved into Villa 12 at the Garden of Allah in Hollywood, where Gloria quickly established herself as The Garden's unofficial hostess, often preparing extravagant dinner parties after collecting food ration stamps from invitees and shopping creatively at the Farmers Market.[40] In 1946, she opened a small business, Décor, Ltd, where she sold lamps, mirrors, tables, chests, and other objets d'art of the découpage she created.

Sheekman wrote seventeen screenplays during the next sixteen years. In 1954, with their daughter studying at UC Berkeley, Gloria and Arthur Sheekman joined friends who were living abroad, settling in Rapallo on the Italian Riviera. Inspired by the success of the primitive paintings of Grandma Moses, Stuart took up oil painting. Her first one-woman show at the Hammer Galleries in New York all but sold out.[citation needed] After forty-three years of marriage, Arthur Sheekman died on January 12, 1978, just weeks before his 77th birthday.

Stuart was also active in political and social causes. She was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild and in 1936 helped form the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and with writer Dorothy Parker the Spanish Children's Relief. She also became a member of the Hollywood Democratic Committee and was on the executive board of the California State Democratic Committee.[41]

Bonsai called "French Black Oak Forest" was created by Gloria Stuart in 1982 after returning from France where she gathered the acorns in the royal forest at Fontainebleau.

Stuart was a friend of the author Christopher Isherwood and his longtime companion, the portraitist Don Bachardy, who made several portraits of Stuart. She discusses her relationship to the pair, and particularly her views on Bachardy's art, in video interviews included among the supplementary outtakes on the DVD release of the documentary film Chris and Don: A Love Story.

Return to acting – 1970s to 2000s

In 1975, after twenty-nine years away from acting, with her husband, Arthur, in a nursing home, Gloria got an agent and went back to work. In 1978, Arthur died. Over the next few years she appeared in small parts in television. Then in 1982 came an offer for what was to be one of her favorite scenes in all her films: playing a silver-haired dowager taking a solitary turn around a dance floor with Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year.

During this period, Stuart took up the Japanese art of bonsai, becoming the first Anglo member of the California Bonsai Society. And she began to travel again, going with friends or on her own to Europe, India, Africa, the Balkans. In 1983, Stuart became romantically involved with her old friend, the California printer Ward Ritchie,[42] whom she had known during her college years. Ritchie taught her how to run an antique book press.[42] She bought her own hand press and established "Imprenta Glorias", and began creating artists' books (books hand-made, labor-intensive, usually with a very limited run). Stuart wrote the text, designed the book, set the type, printed the pages, and finished pages with water colors or silk screen or découpage. Books from Imprenta Glorias are in the Metropolitan Museum, Library of Congress, Huntington Library, J. Paul Getty Museum, Morgan Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and numerous private and university collections. No longer able to work with small type and a large heavy press, she gave her press and sets of rare type to Mills College. Stuart and Ritchie maintained their close relationship until his death from cancer in 1996.[42]

Not long after Ritchie's death, Stuart landed the character of 100-year-old Rose, at the heart of James Cameron's Titanic. Stuart was nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She remains the oldest person ever to have been nominated for an Oscar. Suzy Amis credited Stuart for bringing her together on the set with her eventual husband, director James Cameron.[43] Stuart also made an appearance in the Hanson music video "River", where she parodied her character in Titanic.[44]

Stuart published her autobiography, I Just Kept Hoping, in 1999, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2000. Her last appearance on film was a role in Wim Wenders's Land of Plenty in 2004, and afterward she gave numerous filmed and audio interviews. Stuart continued to work at her artist's books, finishing a miniature about a time when she was in Berkeley, called I Dated Oppenheimer. Even after her retirement from film acting in 2004, she remained never far away from the public eye.

Other work

Her poem, 'You Are Gone Now', was set to music by Richard Tauber, who first sang it in her presence at a concert in Los Angeles on November 30, 1937.

When Stuart was 99 years old, she was interviewed by writer and actor Mark Gatiss about her role in theThe Old Dark House by James Whale, and about her co-star Boris Karloff, for his 2010 BBC documentary series A History of Horror.[45][46]

Death

Stuart was diagnosed with lung cancer around age 95; however, she lived to see her 100th birthday. Stuart died less than three months later on September 26, 2010.[41]

Awards and honors

On June 19, 2010, Stuart was honored by the Screen Actors Guild for her years of service. She was presented the Ralph Morgan Award by Titanic co-star Frances Fisher and in response Stuart replied, "I'm very, very grateful. I've had a wonderful life of giving and sharing."[47]

On July 4, 2010, Stuart celebrated her 100th birthday at the ACE Gallery in Beverly Hills with a party hosted by the director of Titanic, James Cameron and his wife, Suzy Amis, another of her Titanic co-stars. Frances Fisher and Shirley MacLaine were among the guests.[48]

On July 22, 2010, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored her career with a program featuring film clips and a conversation between Stuart and film historian Leonard Maltin.[49]

Stuart later said that she relates with her comeback character of the 100-year-old Rose saying: "I think that's the important thing, if you're full of love, admiration, appreciation of the beautiful things there are in this life, you have it made, really. And I have it made."[50]

Legacy

Documentary of Stuart's life

A new documentary is currently in production called "The Secret Life of Old Rose" which explores Stuart's long acting career as well as her career as an artist, fine art printer and printmaker, and bonsai master. The link to the documentary is: http://www.secretlifeofoldrose.com The documentary is produced and directed by Benjamin Stuart Thompson, Gloria Stuart's grandson.

Butterfly Summers

Gloria Stuart's great granddaughter Deborah B. Thompson published a memoir in March 2012 entitled "Butterfly Summers: A Memoir of Gloria Stuart's Apprentice." Through the ebook, Deborah shares her personal experience of working closely with her great grandmother to complete a set of butterfly-shaped artist's books over the course of five years. The New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman writes, "Here is the heart-felt and moving story of the bond between a young woman and her great grandmother -- who happens to be a Hollywood movie star -- but the real connection is forged by a love of art and books and by their love for one another."

Filmography

Year Title Director Female Billing
1932 Street of Women Archie Mayo 2nd
1932 The All-American Russell Mack 1st
1932 The Old Dark House James Whale 3rd
1932 Air Mail John Ford 1st
1933 Laughter in Hell Edward L. Cahn 2nd
1933 Sweepings John Cromwell 1st
1933 Private Jones Russell Mack 1st
1933 The Kiss Before the Mirror James Whale 2nd
1933 The Girl in 419 Alexander Hall, George Somnes 1st
1933 It's Great to Be Alive Alfred L. Werker 2nd
1933 Secret of the Blue Room Kurt Neumann 1st
1933 The Invisible Man James Whale 1st
1933 Roman Scandals Frank Tuttle 2nd
1934 Beloved Victor Schertzinger 1st
1934 I Like It That Way Harry Lachman 1st
1934 I'll Tell the World Edward Sedgwick 1st
1934 The Love Captive Max Marcin 1st
1934 Here Comes the Navy Lloyd Bacon 1st
1934 Gift of Gab Karl Freund 1st
1935 Maybe It's Love William McGann 1st
1935 Gold Diggers of 1935 Busby Berkeley 1st
1935 Laddie George Stevens 1st
1935 Professional Soldier Tay Garnett 1st
1936 The Prisoner of Shark Island John Ford 1st
1936 The Crime of Dr. Forbes George Marshall 1st
1936 Poor Little Rich Girl Irving Cummings 3rd
1936 36 Hours to Kill Eugene Forde 1st
1936 The Girl on the Front Page Harry Beaumont 1st
1936 Wanted: Jane Turner Edward Killy 1st
1937 Girl Overboard Sidney Salkow 1st
1937 The Lady Escapes Eugene Forde 1st
1937 Life Begins in College William A. Seiter 2nd
1938 Change of Heart James Tinling 1st
1938 Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm Allan Dwan 2nd
1938 Island in the Sky Herbert I. Leeds 1st
1938 Keep Smiling Herbert I. Leeds 2nd
1938 Time Out for Murder H. Bruce Humberstone 1st
1938 The Lady Objects Erle C. Kenton 1st
1939 The Three Musketeers Allan Dwan 2nd
1939 Winner Take All Otto Brower 1st
1939 It Could Happen to You Alfred L. Werker 1st
1943 Here Comes Elmer Joseph Santley 2nd
1944 The Whistler William Castle 1st
1944 Enemy of Women Alfred Zeisler 3rd
1946 She Wrote the Book Charles Lamont 3rd
1982 My Favorite Year Richard Benjamin ~
1984 Mass Appeal Glenn Jordan ~
1986 Wildcats Michael Ritchie ~
1997 Titanic James Cameron 4th
1999 The Love Letter Peter Ho-Sun Chan 5th
2000 The Million Dollar Hotel Wim Wenders 3rd
2004 Land of Plenty Wim Wenders ~

Television

Notes

Wikinews has related news:
  1. ^ ancestry.com, 1920 United States Federal Census, City of Santa Monica, precinct 14, sheet No. 12B, line 52. Accessed September 15, 2014.
  2. ^ Stuart, Gloria; Thompson, Sylvia. I Just Kept Hoping. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1999. ISBN 0-316-81571-3. p. 6
  3. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 203
  4. ^ ancestry.com 1910 United States Federal Census, City of Ocean Park, precinct 8, sheet No. 12A, line 20. Accessed September 15, 2014.
  5. ^ Pepe, Barbara. "Gloria Stuart". Hello. February 21, 1998, p. 8
  6. ^ ancestry.com, 1920 United States Federal Census, City of Santa Monica, precinct 14, sheet No. 12B, line 53. Accessed September 15, 2014.
  7. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 6
  8. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 11
  9. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 11-12
  10. ^ 1927 Santa Monica High School yearbook, page 45
  11. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 7
  12. ^ "Former Times Sportswriter Frank Finch Dies at 81."Los Angeles Times. August 8, 1992.
  13. ^ Hello, p. 8
  14. ^ 1927 Santa Monica High School yearbook.
  15. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 13
  16. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 20
  17. ^ Hello, p. 8
  18. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 13
  19. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 25
  20. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 10
  21. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 12
  22. ^ Hello, p. 8
  23. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 8-9
  24. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 21
  25. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 23
  26. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 18
  27. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 31
  28. ^ "You Are Gone Now" Chant. Words by Gloria Stuart. Music by Richard Tauber. Copyright, MCMXXXVII, by Chappell & Co., Ltd.
  29. ^ Stuart (1999), p. 36
  30. ^ Stuart (1999), pp. 31-37
  31. ^ Stuart, Gloria. "'The Play's the Thing' As Produced in Pasadena" The Carmelite. November 12, 1931. Gloria mistakenly calls it the Band Box in her book.
  32. ^ Hello, p. 8
  33. ^ Accessed September 15, 2014.
  34. ^ Accessed September 15, 2014.
  35. ^ From the original trailer, [http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/140804/Street-of-Women-trailer.html.%20. Accessed September 13, 2014.
  36. ^ Accessed September 15, 2014.
  37. ^ Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Lillian Bond, Ernest Thesiger, Eva Moore and Raymond Massey.
  38. ^ Hall, Mordaunt. "Frankenstein" (1931) THE SCREEN; A Man-Made Monster in Grand Guignol Film Story". The New York Times, December 13, 1931.
  39. ^ Stuart, Gloria; Thompson, Sylvia (1999-09-08). Gloria Stuart: I Just Kept Hoping. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. ISBN 0-316-81571-3.
  40. ^ Thompson, Sylvia Sheekman, "Martini Time In The Garden of Allah," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 5, 2000
  41. ^ a b McLellan, Dennis (2010-09-27). "Gloria Stuart, 'Titanic' actress, dies at 100". Los Angeles Times. Tribune Company. Retrieved 2010-09-27. Cite error: The named reference "death" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  42. ^ a b c Harmetz, Aljean; Robert Berkvist (September 27, 2010). "Gloria Stuart, an Actress Rediscovered Late, Dies at 100". New York Times. p. B19. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  43. ^ Lacher, Irene (2010-07-05). "'Titanic' actress Gloria Stuart celebrates her 100th birthday | Ministry of Gossip | Los Angeles Times". Latimesblogs.latimes.com. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
  44. ^ "Hanson, Weird Al Spoof Titanic in Video". MTV. 1998-06-03. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
  45. ^ Clarke, Donald. "Mark Gatiss's History of Horror". Irish Times. Retrieved 2010-11-02.
  46. ^ "A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss – Frankenstein Goes To Hollywood Ep 1/3". BBC. 2010-10-11.
  47. ^ "Titanic's Stuart Honored By Screen Actors Guild".
  48. ^ "'Titanic' star Gloria Stuart turns 100". USA Today. July 6, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-07.
  49. ^ "Gloria Stuart to celebrate 100th birthday by being honored by the Academy". HollywoodNews.com. July 1, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-07.
  50. ^ Cidoni, Mike (July 22, 2010). "Academy honoring 100-year-old Gloria Stuart". msnbc.com. Retrieved 2010-10-03.

Sources

  • Stuart, Gloria; Thompson, Sylvia (1999-09-08). Gloria Stuart: I Just Kept Hoping. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. ISBN 0-316-81571-3.
  • Kathleen Walkup, 'Fine Printing's Hollywood Connection: Gloria Stuart's Imprenta Glorias', in Parenthesis; 19 (2010 Autumn), p. 30-32
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