George then left MGM and found a string of strong supporting roles, starting with Panama Smith, the speakeasy proprietor in love with James Cagney in The Roaring Twenties (1939). Dogged by gossip columnist Franchot Tone, she sets out to adopt orphaned siblings Mickey Rooney and Virginia Weidler, first for publicity and then out of love.īy that point, her hard-living was beginning to show in her face, and MGM decided to move her to supporting roles, starting with a strong turn as Madame du Barry in Marie Antoinette (1938), starring Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power. In her last top-billed role at MGM, George appropriately played a stage star in Love Is a Headache (1938). The casting was a special thrill for George as her mentor, Frederick, had played the same role in a 1920 silent version. The two are reunited years later when, not knowing she?s his mother, he defends her for killing a blackmailer who had threatened to expose their family connection. George's growing reputation for hard-partying made her a perfect choice for the story of a woman whose indiscretion costs her her only child. MGM rewarded her with a leading role opposite Spencer Tracy in They Gave Him a Gun (1937) and the title role in the sixth screen adaptation of the classic weepie Madame X (1937). As a woman with a past who discovers her maternal side when she takes in two orphans, she was top-billed for the first time on screen and earned her only Oscar® nomination. On George's return to Hollywood, she was still under contract to MGM, but they loaned her to Paramount for what would be one of her biggest personal hits, Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936). Fortunately, the play's success kept her away from Hollywood until the scandal blew over. George lived up to the role off-screen when her husband caught her in an affair with co-star Leonard Penn, who would become her third husband. Then it was back to Broadway for her biggest stage hit, playing the temperamental, hard-living film star in Personal Appearance (Mae West would re-write the script and play George's role in 1936's Go West, Young Man). She also returned to Hollywood for a colorful supporting role as a gangster's moll in MGM's Straight Is the Way (1934), starring Franchot Tone, May Robson and Karen Morley. Fowler, and had returned to Broadway, albeit briefly, in the flop Queer People. They would divorce in 1930.īy the early '30s she had a rich husband, millionaire industrialist Edward H. She also married her first of four husbands, actor Ben Erway. Instead, she returned to the stage, where it was easier to cover up the scarring while she healed. She was building a solid career in silent films, thanks largely to her youthful blonde beauty, when an accident that left her face severely burned brought an end to that phase of her career. In 1919, George made her first trip to Hollywood, where she made her screen debut as the romantic lead in Red Hot Dollars (1919), opposite Charles Ray. She refined her technique working with Frederick and also found her type - as bubbly ingénues, particularly society girls. George then had the good fortune to sign with actress Pauline Frederick's touring stock company. Rather the cast included Augustin Duncan, Henry Travers and a very young Lillian Roth. She never really stopped working, making her Broadway debut in an adaptation of Maurice Maeterlinck's The Betrothal in 1918, though not, as some sources suggest, opposite Isadora Duncan. By the time she was three, she was part of the act, touring vaudeville theatres with The Three Clare's (her parents' professional name). She was born to a family of British actors touring in Maine in 1900. George's consistency may be a result of her theatrical upbringing. Unlike other notorious party girls - including Barbara Payton and Lila Leeds - she consistently delivered solid performances over the course of a half-century career. Gladys George was one of the movies' greatest hard-luck dames, both on- and off-screen.
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