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Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910-April 23, 1990) was an American actress and socialite. Her career spanned six decades, from the 1920s to the early 1970s. She was a prominent leading actress during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Born in New York City and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Goddard initially began her career as a child fashion model and performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl. In the early 1930s, she moved to Hollywood and gained notice as the romantic partner of actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin, appearing as his leading lady in Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940).
After signing with Paramount Pictures, Goddard became one of the studio's biggest stars with roles in The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, The Women (1939) with Joan Crawford, North West Mounted Police (1940) with Gary Cooper, Reap the Wild Wind (1942) with John Wayne and Susan Hayward, So Proudly We Hail! (1943) (for which she received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress), Kitty (1945) with Ray Milland, and Unconquered (1947) with Gary Cooper.
Goddard was noted as a fiercely independent woman for her time, being described by one executive as dynamite. Her marriages to Chaplin, the actor Burgess Meredith, and the writer Erich Maria Remarque received substantial media attention. Following her marriage to Remarque, Goddard moved to Switzerland and largely retired from acting. In the 1980s, she became a notable socialite.
Goddard died in Switzerland in 1990.
Goddard was born in New York City, as Marion Levy, the daughter of Joseph Russell Le Vee, the son of a prosperous cigar manufacturer from Salt Lake City, and Alta Mae Goddard.
Goddard first visited Hollywood in 1929.
Chaplin sent her to local acting teacher Neely Dickson at the Hollywood Community Theater to, in Dickson's words, give her a polish. It marked a turning point in Goddard's career when Chaplin cast her as his leading lady in his next box office hit, Modern Times (1936). Her role as The Gamin, an orphan girl who runs away from the authorities and becomes The Tramp's companion, was her first credited film appearance and garnered her mainly positive reviews, Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times describing her as the fitting recipient of the great Charlot's championship.
Following the success of Modern Times, Chaplin planned other projects with Goddard in mind as a co-star. However, Chaplin worked on his projects slowly, and Goddard worried that the public might forget about her if she did not continue to make regular film appearances.
On April 23, 1990, aged 79, Goddard died at her home in Switzerland.
Arguably, Goddard's foremost legacies remain her two feature films with Charles Chaplin -Modern Times and The Great Dictator- and a $20 million donation to New York University (NYU) in New York City to fund an institution devoted to European studies, named after Remarque.
More information: Walk of Fame
to learn to play tennis and become a star,
but I never felt it was my home.
I was never looking for a home,
as a matter of fact.
Paulette Goddard
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