Loretta Young (born Gretchen 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 an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in film and television.
She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film The Farmer's Daughter (1947) and received her second Academy Award nomination for her role in Come to the Stable (1949). She also starred in films such as Born to Be Bad (1934), Call of the Wild (1935), The Crusades (1935), Eternally Yours (1939), The Stranger (1946), The Bishop's Wife (1947), and Key to the City (1950).
Young moved to the relatively new medium of television, where she had a dramatic anthology series, The Loretta Young Show, from 1953 to 1961. It earned three Primetime Emmy Awards, and was rerun successfully on daytime TV and later in syndication. She also starred in The New Loretta Young Show from 1962 to 1963. Young returned to the small screen in the 1980s starring in two NBC television movies, Christmas Eve (1986), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film, and Lady in a Corner (1989).
Young was born Gretchen Michaela Young on January 6, 1913, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of Gladys (née Royal) and John Earle Young. She was of Luxembourgish descent. When she was two years old, her parents separated. A year later, her mother moved the family to Hollywood. A priest helped Gladys establish a boarding house to generate income. Gladys' brother-in-law helped Gretchen and her sisters get small parts in silent films for income.
Around 1925, Gladys met Ida Botiller Lindley, a very wealthy widow. Ida had no children, but wanted to carry on her husband's name. To do so, she proposed adopting 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. As a result, though, he did not remain in close contact with his sisters.
Gretchen and her sisters, Polly Ann and Elizabeth Jane (better known as Sally 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.
Young's first role was at the age of just three (although uncredited) in the silent film Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1916). During her high-school years, she was educated at Ramona Convent Secondary School in Alhambra, California. She was signed to a contract by John McCormick, husband and manager of actress Colleen Moore, who saw the young girl's potential. Moore gave her the name Loretta, explaining that it was the name of her favorite doll.
Young was billed as Gretchen Young in the silent film Sirens of the Sea (1917). She first appeared as Loretta Young in 1928, in the First National Pictures film The Whip Woman. That same year, she co-starred with Lon Chaney in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film Laugh, Clown, Laugh. The next year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. In 1930, when Young was 17, she eloped with 26-year-old actor Grant Withers; they were married in Yuma, Arizona. The marriage was annulled the next year, just as their second movie together for First National (entitled Too Young to Marry) was released.
In 1931, Young costarred with Jean Harlow and Robert Williams in his final role in the Columbia Pictures release, Platinum Blonde. In 1934, she co-starred with Cary Grant in the pre-Code drama Born to be Bad, released by Twentieth Century Pictures. This film was rejected by the Hays Office, which enforced film morality, twice before it was finally approved. The next year, Young starred opposite Clark Gable and Jack Oakie in the 1935 film adaptation of Jack London's action-adventure novel The Call of the Wild, directed by William Wellman for Twentieth Century. Also in 1935, she portrayed Berengaria, Princess of Navarre in the Cecil B. DeMille-directed historical epic The Crusades (1935) for Paramount Pictures. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, where it received an award for Best Foreign Film.
The following year, Young starred as Lady Helen Dudley Dearden in the MGM picture The Unguarded Hour (1936). The film was directed by Sam Wood and was based on the 1935 play of the same name by Bernard Merivale. In 1938, she played Countess Eugenie de Montijo in the romantic drama Suez, starring opposite Tyrone Power. The film was directed by Allan Dwan and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck.
1940–1952: Career breakthrough
During World War II, Young made Ladies Courageous (1944; reissued as Fury in the Sky) for Universal Pictures. The film was the fictionalized story of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. The plot 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 made The Stranger, distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. She protrayeda small-town American woman who unknowingly marries a Nazi war criminal (Orson Welles) who later tries to kill her. Welles recalled that the film's producer ordered a close-up of Young during a pivotal scene, a choice that Welles, the director, considered "fatal" to the scene's impact. Young took Welles' side, even getting her agent on the phone to support them. "Imagine getting a star's agent in to ensure that she wouldn't get a closeup!", Welles later said. "She was wonderful." Critic Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post noted in his movie review,"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."In 1947, Young won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Farmer's Daughter, a political comedy from RKO that required her to learn a Swedish accent. Ruth Roberts, who had coached Ingrid Bergman on how to lose her Swedish accent, taught Young how to gain one. That same year, Young co-starred with Cary Grant and David Niven in the romantic comedy by RKO, The Bishop's Wife. In 1949, she received another Academy Award nomination for her role as Sister Margaret in the 20th Century Fox comedy drama Come to the Stable.
Young reunited in 1950 with Gable for the romantic comedy Key to the City. The next year, Young starred in the MGM melodrama Cause for Alarm! (1951) and the 20th Century Fox comedy Half Angel (1951). These were followed by Columbia Pictures' film noir release, Paula (1952). Also in 1952, she starred in the romance drama Because of You from Universal Pictures. In 1953, Young acted in her final theatrical film, It Happens Every Thursday. It was a comedy from Universal about a New York couple who move to California to take over a struggling weekly newspaper; her co-star was John Forsythe.
1953–1961: The Loretta Young Show
Starting in 1953, Young hosted and acted in the half-hour anthology television series Letter to Loretta (later retitled as The Loretta Young Show) on the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). She earned three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for the program. Her trademark introduction of each episode showed her walking onto a living room set wearing a high-fashion evening gown. At the conclusion of the episode, she returned to offer a brief Bible passage or a famous quote that reflected upon the evening's story. In her contract, Young stipulated that the introductions and concluding remarks of each episode be cut for reruns. Her reason was that she did not want the gowns to date the episodes.