Paulette Goddard

Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress and socialite. She had a career spanning across six decades starting in the 1920s and ending in the early 1970s. She was prominent leading actress during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Born in New York City and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Goddard initially began her career as a child fashion model and performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl. In the early 1930s, she moved to Hollywood and gained notice as the romantic partner of actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin, appearing as his leading lady in Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940). After signing with Paramount Pictures, Goddard became one of the studio's biggest stars with roles in The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, The Women (1939) with Joan Crawford, North West Mounted Police (1940) with Gary Cooper, Reap the Wild Wind (1942) with John Wayne and Susan Hayward, So Proudly We Hail! (1943) (for which she received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress), Kitty (1945) with Ray Milland, and Unconquered (1947) with Gary Cooper. Goddard was noted as a fiercely independent woman for her time, being described by one executive as "dynamite". Her marriages to Chaplin, actor Burgess Meredith, and writer Erich Maria Remarque received substantial media attention. Following her marriage to Remarque, Goddard moved to Switzerland and largely retired from acting. In the 1980s, she became a notable socialite before dying in Switzerland in 1990. Early life Goddard was born in New York City, as Marion Levy, the daughter of Joseph Russell Levy, the son of a prosperous cigar manufacturer from Salt Lake City, and Alta Mae Goddard. Her parents separated and divorced in 1926. According to Goddard, her father left them, but according to J. R. Levy, Alta absconded with the child; to avoid a custody battle, she and her mother moved often during her childhood, including relocating to Canada at one point. Goddard did not meet her father again until the late 1930s, after she had become famous. In a 1938 interview published in Collier's, Goddard claimed Levy was not her biological father. In response, Levy filed a suit against his daughter, claiming that the interview had ruined his reputation and cost him his job, and demanded financial support from her; Goddard admitted her loss in the case in a December 1945 interview with Life, and was forced to pay her father $35 a week.