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Paulette Goddard
| Biography |
Paulette Goddard was a child model who debuted with Ziegfeld at the age of 13. Paulette would be famous with the Ziegfeld show as the girl on the crescent moon. Goddard's trademark infectious grin lent her a bewitching appeal that few could resist. She left her Ziegfeld chorus to marry a millionaire at 16, and just a few years later, divorced and with a personal fortune of half a million dollars in alimony, she arrived in Hollywood, ready to take the town by storm. One of her bigger roles was when she appeared as a blond "Goldwyn Girl" in the Eddie Cantor film The Kid from Spain (1932). In 1932, she would meet Charlie Chaplin and they would become an item around town. Chaplin cast her in the two films that earned them both a catbird's seat in posterity--Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940) . Since the public never ascertained whether the couple actually married or not, Paulette lost the plum role of Scarlett in Gone With the Wind to Vivien Leigh because she represented a "moral risk" to a puritanical public. She instead appeared in Cecil B. DeMille's epic Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and became one of Paramount's top-drawing stars. Her "marriage" to Chaplin ended shortly after the release of The Great Dictator, and Goddard next married Burgess Meredith. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in So Proudly We Hail! (1943). In the early forties, Paulette would be one of Paramount's top stars. But that star faded in the late forties and she was dropped by Paramount in 1949. Her acting career screeched to a halt after several agonizing B-movie appearances. The still lovely Goddard moved to Europe with her last husband, novelist Erich Maria Remarque. She was coaxed back to the screen once more, although it was the small screen, for the 1972 Television movie "The Snoop Sisters". |
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