Remembering movie star Jean Arthur by "Celebrity" New York City tourguide-actor Jim Dykes
Jean Arthur today
is mostly forgotten by modern movie audiences but in the 1930’s and 1940’s
she was a BIG movie star…America’s “Girl Next Door” and she was from New York City...specifically Washington
Heights in Upper Manhattan. She was known for her croaky-voiced, tough-talking, streetwise
blue-eyed blonde with the marshmallow heart from movies of those days,
especially Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. She had a sexy
girl-next-door quality (before this became an over-used expression) which made
men want to bring her home to meet Mother and made women want to be her best
friend. She had an eternally youthful quality, playing ingenues well into her
forties. But most of all, it was that wonderfully low, gravelly, distinctive
Jean Arthur voice which we remember so well, so unlike the other ingenues of
the day.
Although she played her share of helpless females early in
her silent film career, she did as she was told while she learned the business
of movie acting. Her natural
assertiveness and streetwise common sense were traits which Hollywood soon
discovered and later incorporated into many of her most famous roles making her
a unique commodity: a woman who thought for herself and usually stood on her
own two feet (even though she still got her man at the end of every picture). A
slightly dizzy, but never dumb blonde, she played reporters, landladies,
executives as well as upwardly mobile shopgirls. She was always the epitomy of honesty and
common sense in classic Hollywood films like Mr. Deeds (with Gary Cooper), Mr. Smith (with Jimmy Stewart), The Talk of
the Town (my personal favorite) with Cary
Grant, George Stevens’ The More the
Merrier, You Can’t Take It With You, The Devil and Miss Jones, Only Angels Have
Wings, and many more.
Jean Arthur was
born Gladys Georgiana Greene
(pronounced George-Jean-uh) on Oct. 17, 1900 (the year changes depending on
which version of her age you believe) in upstate Plattsburg to Norwegian
immigrant & Irish-American parents. Her father was a professional
photographer and moved the family around to a few places until they settled in
Upper Manhattan at 573 West 159th Street in Washington Heights where
she attended George Washington High
School (like Paulette Goddard and others). Since her father was a
photographer she grew up posing for him and knew she was photogenic. She got a
job downtown on Bond Street as a stenographer and modelled parttime (mostly
hats) in the Garment District. Her Mother Hannah saw a piece in the newspaper “Looking
for photogenic girls for Movie Screen Tests” so she suggested Gladys submit
herself, even though she had never studied acting. She was selected for a movie
contract by Columbia Pictures and she and her Mom took the train to Hollywood
where she spent years “learning the business”
in bit parts. When talking movies came in, the search for actresses with
good voices began and she came to the attention of Columbia mogul Harry Cohn,
who changed her name to Jean Arthur. At first she did low budget westerns,
gangster films and slapstick comedies but eventually she was “discovered” by
Frank Capra and other directors because she was talented, photogenic and easy
to work with…all great skills.
Supposedly Jean Arthur was shy and suffered from stage
fright which didn’t affect her screen performances but did make problems later
in her career when she attempted to do some Broadway work. She played Peter
Pan and later was set to star in the Broadway production BORN
YESTERDAY. Her understudy was Judy Holliday who ended up getting the
role and opening it on Broadway when Jean Arthur was forced to drop out in
Philadelphia on the way to New York. Later Judy Holliday got rave reviews, made
the film and won the Oscar. In later years, she became a bit of a recluse and
her last film was 1953’s SHANE. She
tried TV later with the Jean Arthur Show. In 1950, during an interview, Jean
said: “I never had a chance to learn to act. Today, the movie companies hire
coaches and young actors work in plays before an audience. But in those early
days, you were simply tossed to the cameras, sink or swim.”
Later she taught acting at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie,
New York. The world lost Jean Arthur on June 19, 1991, when she died of heart
failure in a nursing home in Carmel, California. According to her wishes, she
was cremated and her ashes were scattered off Point Lobos, near her California
home.
But in my mind, Jean Arthur will forever be that sexy, tough-talking
Congressional assistant in Mr. Smith Goes
to Washington, who inspires Jimmy Stewart to stand up for himself in the
senate and the tough-talking reporter in Mr.
Deeds Goes to Town and so many other roles.
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