Jean Arthur - A Squeaky Voice For the Ages
Star of Classics Including Shane Was Shy, Vain and Superb Actress
Oct 17, 2009
She was not jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Didn't have a killer figure. But sweet-faced, petite Jean Arthur had a gift for projecting warmth, strength and a wholesome scatteredness that captivated audiences between the world wars.
Her trademark was an evocative, throaty voice sometimes described as a cross between a squeaky wheel and a croaking frog.
That voice was a key element of the spunky appeal she honed over two decades in screwball comedies, political dramas and miscellaneous movie romances.
The Likely Source of Jean Arthur's Screen Name
The legend is that Gladys Georgianna Greene's stage name was meant to honor her two heroes: Joan of Arc and King Arthur.
She was born in Plattsburgh, in the Adirondacks near the Canadian border in upstate New York, two weeks before Halloween in 1900. The nomadic Greenes lived variously in Maine, Florida, Schenectady, New York and, during part of Gladys' high school years, in upper Manhattan's Washington Heights.
In 1923, Arthur was working as a commercial model in New York City when Fox Film Studios signed and then cast her in the John Ford silent, Cameo Kirby.
Big Break Came in Edward G. Robinson Comedy
By 1929, Jean Arthur was a movie veteran -- and an unhappy one. "First I played ingenues and western heroines," she once remarked. "Then, I played western heroines and ingenues. That diet of roles became as monotonous as a diet of spinach. The studio wouldn't trust me with any other kind of role, because I had no experience in any other kind."
She worked a bit on Broadway, but moviegoers never got the chance to hear that distinctive voice until the early sound era when, coincidentally, the natural brunette began coloring her hair blonde.
The big break came in Arthur's 68th film, when she again was directed by John Ford. The 1935 Edward G. Robinson gangster farce The Whole Town's Talking "was the first of Arthur's films to feature her in the type of role with which she would always be associated," wrote her biographer, "the hard-boiled working girl with a heart of gold, who successfully urges a meek but good man on to glory." (Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew," by John Oller, Limelight Editions, New York, 1997)
Director Frank Capra Casts Arthur in Three Consecutive Hits
Within five years, she was a major star. Frank Capra called Arthur his favorite actress, and cast her in three classics during those years -- opposite Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and alongside James Stewart in both You Can't Take It With You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Other films during this period underscored her versatility. They included the breezy screwball comedy Easy Living, in which we meet working girl Arthur when a fur coat is tossed 20 stories down, onto her head, and the underrated History is Made at Night, which critic F.X. Feeney once called "perhaps the most romantic film ever shot in the English language."
Real Life Romance With David O. Selznick
Off camera, Arthur's love life bore little resemblance to her movie roles. For a time, she was involved with producer David O. Selznick. But at 28, in 1928, Jean Arthur got married.
For a day.
The groom was photographer Julian Ancker, whose looks reminded her of Abraham Lincoln. He proposed on a whim, and off they went to Santa Barbara to wed.
The marriage was quickly annulled.
Jean Arthur Marries Film Producer Frank Ross
In 1932, Arthur married again, this time to producer Frank Ross. The childless marriage lasted 17 years, until a divorce freed Ross to marry his mistress, actress Joan Caulfield.
Arthur remained a top star through the mid-40s, in a string of hits including the Frank Ross-produced The Devil and Miss Jones. She earned an Oscar nomination for the excellent wartime romantic comedy The More the Merrier, co-starring Joel McCrea and directed by an Arthur favorite, George Stevens. (Character actor Charles Coburn brought a good deal of his own charm to both films.)
In 1944, Arthur's contact with Columbia Pictures expired, which reportedly led her to race through the studio streets, proclaiming, "I'm free! I'm free!"
Directors Billy Wilder and George Stevens See the Last of Queen Arthur
Her career in pictures was, by her own choice, nearly over. After just two more features -- Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair in 1948 and George Stevens' classic western Shane five years later -- Jean Arthur walked away from movies.
One curtain call, a short-lived TV series in the mid-1960s, was cancelled after just 11 weeks.
Jean Arthur never remarried. She became a recluse, eventually settling in the seaside resort of Carmel, California, emerging a few times for some stage roles (notably Joan of Arc and Peter Pan) and very rare personal appearances.
Jean Arthur's Vanity Caused On-Set Headaches
Arthur, who was passionately devoted to the craft of acting, was notoriously self-conscious about her looks, insisting she only be photographed from the left side. The demand gave her directors and cinematographers fits.
She also suffered from tremendous stage fright, which as years passed made her loathe the process of moviemaking.
In her later years, Arthur taught acting at Vassar, where one of her students was a young Meryl Streep.
Jean Arthur died in Carmel, in June, 1991. She was 90.
Her ashes were scattered in the Pacific off Point Lobos, near Carmel.
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