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Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew Review

I am so excited to announce that I am doing Out of the Past’s 2020 Summer Reading Challenge! My first review for the challenge starts with the book, Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew by John Oller. And honestly, the title speaks for itself, and for me. I absolutely enjoyed this biography and feel like it told so much about the wonderful actress.

Oller paints an interesting portrait of Arthur, who was born Gladys Georgianna Greene, a person whose on-screen persona did not match her off-screen persona at all. Arthur certainly came from little means, the one commonality between her and most of her characters on-screen. The only girl with a great deal of brothers, one might say Arthur learned her toughness at a young age. But Arthur didn’t necessarily want to be an actress. She needed a steady paycheck to support her family and this seemed promising. Once she made it to Hollywood, she was cast in a lot of Westerns or films that she was there to look pretty in. One thing I never knew is that during this time period, Arthur was a b

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This marvelous screen comedienne's best asset was only muffled during her seven years' stint in silent films. That asset? It was, of course, her squeaky, frog-like voice, which silent-era cinema audiences had simply no way of perceiving, much less appreciating. Jean Arthur, born Gladys Georgianna Greene in upstate New York, 20 miles south of the Canadian border, has had her year of birth cited variously as 1900, 1905 and 1908. Her place of birth has often been cited as New York City! (Herein we shall rely for those particulars on Miss Arthur's obituary as given in the authoritative and reliable New York Times. The date and place indicated above shall be deemed correct.) Following her screen debut in a bit part in John Ford's Cameo Kirby (1923), she spent several years playing unremarkable roles as ingénue or leading lady in comedy shorts and cheapie westerns. With the arrival of sound she was able to appear in films whose quality was but slightly improved over that of her past silents. She had to contend, for example, with the consummately evil likes of Dr. Fu Ma

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Seriously Funny —The Curious Life and Career of Jean Arthur

In the 1930s, when so many women in America were still relegated to the kitchen and nursery, one actress in Hollywood became a star playing independent women who worked for a living, competing with men in a man’s world. Her name was Jean Arthur.

Just 5’3”, and endowed with a uniquely husky, smoky voice, Jean never could bring off the role of pliant wife or decorative beauty. There was a hard-earned wisdom, a certain admirable stubbornness about her. Here was a lady who’d lived.

Even with this dark, complex undercurrent in her character, through sheer talent, charisma and hard work she became one of the finest screen comediennes of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

It was a long, bumpy road to stardom. Born Gladys Greene in upstate New York in 1900, she was an afterthought, with two much older brothers. Her innate shyness and a peripatetic childhood made it particularly difficult for her to make enduring friendships. She would remain a somewhat solitary and extremely private person for the rest of