Claudette Colbert ✝

Claudette Colbert (/koʊlˈbɛər/ kohl-BAIR; born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin; September 13, 1903 – July 30, 1996) was a French-American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to films with the advent of talking pictures. Initially associated with Paramount Pictures, she gradually shifted to working as an actress free of the studio system. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for It Happened One Night (1934), and received two other Academy Award nominations during her career. Colbert's other notable films include Cleopatra (1934) and The Palm Beach Story (1942). With her round face, big eyes, aristocratic manner, and flair for light comedy and emotional drama, Colbert's versatility led to her becoming one of the best-paid stars of the 1930s and 1940s and, in 1938 and 1942, the highest-paid. In all, Colbert starred in more than 60 movies. Among her frequent co-stars were Fred MacMurray, in seven films (1935–1949), and Fredric March, in four films (1930–1933). By the early 1950s, Colbert had turned from the screen to television and stage work, and she earned a Tony Award nomination for The Marriage-Go-Round in 1959. Her career waned in the early 1960s, however in the late 1970s, it experienced a resurgence in theater. Colbert received a Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago theater work in 1980. Colbert's television work in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987) earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award nomination.