Ruth Chatterton
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Bibliography
Notes
Chatterton was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for her performances in "Madame X" (1929) and "Sarah and Son" (1930).
Chatterton was a licensed pilot and would regularly fly her own plane cross-country.
Biography
Respected stage actress who made her screen debut in "Sins of the Fathers" (1928) and, at the relatively advanced age of 35, became a popular star of "women's films" of the early 1930s. An intense, often richly theatrical actress with a fine speaking voice, Chatterton enjoyed rewarding parts in such films as "Sarah and Son" (1930) and "Female" (1933). She played determined or high-powered women, often sexually quite liberated and aggressive, who undergo considerable emotional torment, and brought considerable class and dignity even to routine melodramatic romances. Her success in the first sound version of "Madame X" (1929) also insured that many of her later starring vehicles, such as "Frisco Jenny" (1933), would be variations of that film's glamorously suffering wife-and-mother role.
Although her stardom slipped after 1934, Chatterton came back to enjoy one of her finest roles, and the one for which she is best remembered, as Walter Huston's selfish and self-dramatizing wife, dreading the approach of middle age, in William Wyler's superb, beautifully acted adapatation of Sinclair Lewis' novel, "Dodsworth" (1936). Chatterton wrote a Broadway play in 1930 ("Monsieur Brotonneau") and, some time after retiring from films, published several popular novels in the 1950s. Married to actors Ralph Forbes, George Brent and Barry Thomson.
Filmography
Cast (Feature Film)
Life Events
1906
Began career as a stage actress in stock
1912
Made Broadway acting debut
1920
Achieved notable Broadway starring triumph in "Daddy Long Legs"
1928
Film acting debut in "Sins of the Fathers"; immediately became one of Paramount Studios' most popular stars
1930
Broadway writing debut, "Monsieur Brotonneau"
1932
Left Paramount and moved to Warner Brothers/First National; last film at Paramount, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow"
1934
Popularity slipped; left films for a brief period after completing "Journal of a Crime", her last of six films at Warners/First National
1936
Enjoyed notable comeback in William Wyler's "Dodsworth"
1938
Made last two films, "The Rat" and "A Royal Divorce", in Great Britain
Photo Collections
Videos
Movie Clip
Trailer
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
Chatterton was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for her performances in "Madame X" (1929) and "Sarah and Son" (1930).
Chatterton was a licensed pilot and would regularly fly her own plane cross-country.
