Loretta Young (bornGretchen Michaela Young; January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an American actress. Starting as a child, she had a long and varied career in film from 1916 to 1989. She received numerous honors including anAcademy Award, twoGolden Globe Awards, and threePrimetime Emmy Awards as well as two stars on theHollywood Walk of Fame for her work in film and television.
Young was born Gretchen Michaela Young inSalt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of Gladys (née Royal) and John Earle Young.[1][2]She was ofLuxembourgish descent.[3] When she was two years old, her parents separated, and when she was three, her mother moved the family toHollywood. A priest helped Gladys to establish a boarding house as income. Gladys' brother-in-law helped Gretchen and her sisters get small parts in silent films for income. Gladys met Ida Botiller Lindley, a very wealthy widow, by 1925. Ida had no children, but wanted to carry on her husband's name. To do so, she proposed that she adopt Gretchen's younger brother John Royal Young (1914–1997), educating him to be a lawyer like her late husband. Her brother thus became John Royal Young Lindley (later John R. Lindley), and he became a lawyer. However, as a result he did not remain in close contact with his sisters. Gretchen and her sisters,Polly Ann and Elizabeth Jane (better known asSally Blane), all worked as child actresses, but of the three, Gretchen was the most successful. Polly Ann Young, Sally Blane, and John R. Lindley all died in their 80s in 1997. John R. Lindley's son,David, became a well-known multi-instrumentalist rock musician.[4]
Young's first role was at the age of just three (although uncredited) in the silent filmSweet Kitty Bellairs. During her high-school years she was educated atRamona Convent Secondary School. She was signed to a contract byJohn McCormick, husband and manager of actressColleen Moore, who saw the young girl's potential. Moore gave her the name Loretta, explaining that it was the name of her favorite doll.[5]
Young was billed as Gretchen Young in the silent filmSirens of the Sea (1917). She was first billed as Loretta Young in 1928, inThe Whip Woman. That same year, she co-starred withLon Chaney in the MGM filmLaugh, Clown, Laugh. The next year, she was named one of theWAMPAS Baby Stars.[6] In 1930, when she was 17, she eloped with 26-year-old actorGrant Withers; they were married inYuma, Arizona. The marriage was annulled the next year, just as their second movie together (coincidentally entitledToo Young to Marry) was released.
DuringWorld War II, Young madeLadies Courageous (1944; re-issued asFury in the Sky), the fictionalized story of theWomen's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. It depicted a unit of female pilots who flew bomber planes from the factories to their final destinations. Young made as many as eight movies a year, and her films in the 1940s were among the best regarded and most memorable of her career.
In 1946, Young madeThe Stranger, in which she plays a small-town American woman who unknowingly marries a Nazi fugitive (Orson Welles). Welles recalled that the film's producer ordered a close-up of Young during a pivotal scene, a choice that Welles, who directed, considered "fatal" to the scene's impact. Young took the director's side, even getting her agent on the phone to take Welles's side. "Imagine getting a star's agent in to ensure that she wouldn't get a closeup!" Welles later said. "She was wonderful."[7] CriticRichard L. Coe ofThe Washington Post noted, "The languorous Miss Young has the toughest assignment, being called on to shift from the starry-eyed bride of the early reels to the woman who must know in her heart that her husband is one of the most hated of men."[8]
In 1950 she reunited with Clark Gable for the romantic comedyKey to the City. During production of the film, Gable visited the Young household and spoke with his, and Young's, natural daughter,Judy Lewis, for the only time in Lewis' life. Lewis was fifteen at the time and did not know of Gable's role in her conception. The next year she starred in themelodramaCause for Alarm! (1951) and the comedyHalf Angel (1951), followed byColumbia Pictures'film noirPaula (1952). Also in 1952 she starred in the romance dramaBecause of You fromUniversal Pictures.
Young hosted and starred in the well-received half-houranthologytelevision seriesLetter to Loretta (soon retitledThe Loretta Young Show), which was originally broadcast from 1953 to 1961. She earned threePrimetime Emmy Awards and aGolden Globe Award for the program. Her trademark was a dramatic entrance through a living room door in various high-fashion evening gowns. She returned at the program's conclusion to offer a brief passage from the Bible or a famous quote that reflected upon the evening's story. (Young's introductions and concluding remarks were not re-run on television because she legally stipulated that they not be, as she did not want the dresses she wore in those segments to make the program seem dated.)
The show ran inprime time onNBC for eight years, the longest-running primetime network program hosted by a woman up to that time.[11] The program was based on the premise that each drama was an answer to a question asked in herfan mail. The title was changed toThe Loretta Young Show during the first season (as of the episode of February 14, 1954), and the "letter" concept was dropped at the end of the second season. Toward the end of the second season, Young was hospitalized as a result of overwork, which required a number of guest hosts and guest stars; her first appearance in the1955–1956 season was for theChristmas show. From then on, Young appeared in only about half of each season's shows as an actress, and served as the program's host for the remainder.
Minus Young's introductions and conclusions, the series was re-run as theLoretta Young Theatre in daytime byNBC from 1960 to 1964. It also appeared insyndication into the early 1970s, before being withdrawn. In 1972, a jury in Los Angeles awarded Young $550,000 in a lawsuit against NBC for breach of contract. Filed in 1966, the suit contended that NBC had allowed foreign television outlets to re-run old episodes ofThe Loretta Young Show, without excluding, as agreed by the parties, the opening segment in which Young made her entrance. Young testified that her image had been damaged by portraying her in "outdated gowns". She had sought damages of $1.9 million.[12]
Young briefly came out of retirement to star in theNBC television filmChristmas Eve (1986). The story revolves around an elderly woman played by Young who befriends the homeless and volunteers her time with children, who learns she has an incurable illness and wants desperately to reunite her three grown grand children. Young starred alongsideTrevor Howard andRon Leibman, all three of whom receivedGolden Globe Award nominations with Young winning theGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. She then starred in her final role, another NBC television film,Lady in a Corner (1989) starring as the editor-in-chief of a high fashion magazine. She starred oppositeBrian Keith,Roscoe Lee Brown, andBruce Davison. For her performance she received anotherGolden Globe Award nomination in the same category losing toChristine Lahti in theCBS filmNo Place Like Home.
Young was married three times and had three children. Her first marriage was to actorGrant Withers in 1930. The marriage was annulled the following year.[13] From September 1933 to June 1934, she had a well-publicized affair with actorSpencer Tracy (who was married toLouise Tracy), her co-star inMan's Castle.[14] In 1940, Young married producer Tom Lewis. They had two sons:Peter Lewis (of the San Francisco rock bandMoby Grape); andChristopher Lewis, a film director. Young and Lewis divorced in 1969.
In 1993, Young married for the third and final time, to the fashion designerJean Louis. Their marriage lasted until his death in April 1997. Young was godmother toMarlo Thomas (daughter of TV starDanny Thomas).[15]
A smoker since the age of eight,[16] Young quit the habit in the mid-1980s, gaining 10 pounds.[17]
Young did not want to damage her career or that of Gable. She knew if her studio, Twentieth Century Pictures, learned of her pregnancy, they would pressure her to have anabortion. Young was unwilling to have an abortion because she considered abortion amortal sin. Young, her sisters, and their mother devised a plan to conceal the pregnancy and then pretend that her child had been adopted.[19] When Young's pregnancy began to advance, she went on a "vacation" to England. After returning to California, she gave an interview from her bed, covered in blankets; at that time, she stated that her long movie absence was due to a condition she had had since childhood. Young gave birth to a daughter,Judith, on November 6, 1935, inVenice, California. Young named Judith afterSt. Jude because he was thepatron saint of (among other things) difficult situations.[19] Weeks after her birth, Judith was placed in an orphanage. Judith spent the next 19 months in various "hideaways and orphanages" before being re-united with her mother; Young then claimed that she had adopted Judith. After Young married Tom Lewis, Judith took Lewis's last name.[20]
Young and Gable starred together inKey to the City in 1950, when Lewis was 15 years old. At this time, Gable visited the Young household and spoke to Lewis for the only time in her life.[21]
Judy Lewis bore a strong resemblance to Gable,[22] and her true parentage was widely rumored in entertainment circles. When Lewis was 31 years old, she confronted her mother about her parentage;[20] Young privately admitted that she was Lewis's birth mother, stating that Lewis was "a walking mortal sin."[23] Young refused to confirm or comment publicly on the rumors until 1999, when Joan Wester Anderson wrote Young's authorized biography. In interviews with Anderson for the book, Young stated that Lewis was her biological child and the product of a brief affair with Gable.[24] Young would not allow the book to be published until after her death.[20]
In 2015, Linda Lewis, the wife of Young's son, Christopher, stated publicly that in 1998, Young (then 85 years old) had stated that Judy Lewis had been conceived through an act ofdate rape by Clark Gable. According to Linda Lewis, Young added that no consensual intimate contact had occurred between Gable and herself.[19] Young had never disclosed the rape to anyone. Lewis said Young shared this information after learning of the concept of date rape from watchingLarry King Live; she had previously believed it was a woman's job to fend off men's amorous advances and had perceived her inability to thwart Gable's attack as a moral failing on her part. Linda Lewis said that the family remained silent about Young's rape claim until after both Young and Judy Lewis had died.[19]
From the time of Young's retirement in the 1960s until not long before her death, she devoted herself to volunteer work for charities and churches, together with her friends of many yearsJane Wyman,Irene Dunne, andRosalind Russell.[27] She was a member of theChurch of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California.[28] A devout Catholic,[29][30] she worked with various Catholic charities after her acting career.[29][31]
Young has two stars on theHollywood Walk of Fame: one for her work in television, at 6135Hollywood Boulevard, and the other for her work in motion pictures, at 6100 Hollywood Boulevard.[50]
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