Hollywood Studio Magazine (July 1972)

• WHAT-HAVE-YOU- Scavenger’s Paradise Antiques BUY — RENT — SELL — SWAP USED FURNITURE • MARBLE 3731- 35 CAHUENGA WEST TR. 7-7945 Paulette Goddard returns By Kirk Crivello “You’re very sweet to remember.” Paulette Goddard said with a friendly face with its mischievous smile when I told her my favorite Goddard film was “Kitty,” in which she went from rags to riches the obvious way. “I loved playing the waif in ‘Modern Times,’” she laughed. “The part was absolutely me. There is something in my character of the barefoot gamin. Mr. Chaplin understood me.” Wearing her spectacular ruby and diamond necklace, yoga-slim, beautiful Paulette told me this at a reception honoring the publication of her late husband, Erich Maria Remarque’s last novel, “Shadows in Paradise,” held at Greystone, the former home of the Dohenys and now “home” of the American Film Institute. She was in Hollywood to do a cameo with good friend Helen Hayes in “The Snoop Sisters” for Universal-TV. Paulette Goddard had enough zing for a whole stageful of Ziegfeld beauties, (which she was) and caught the eye of Charlie Chaplin, wlio became her personal Pygmalion and later, her husband. Vivacious and talented she probably would have become one of the most popular actresses of the 1940s, even without Chaplin. They met on Joe Schenck’s yacht (’32) when she was a platinum blonde Goldwyn Girl. Born Pauline Levy in Great Neck, L.I., in 1911, she “GHOST BREAKERS” made in 1940 was Paulette’s second movie for Paramount. Paul Lukas was featured. first appeared on Broadway in “Rio Rita.” She then did smal and joined Hal Roach’s stock company till Chaplin made her a star in his Modern Times (’36) and The Great Dictator (’39). David O. Selznick would have given her the Scarlett O’Hara role in “Gone With The Wind” had she only produced a certificate of marriage to Chaplin, which she never did. Even without Scarlett, upon signing with Paramount, she made a long and successful career out of playing gusty ladies: To wonderful zany Paulette Goddard and Kirk Crivello at party held in her honor in Hollywood. mystery-comedies with Bob Hope, “The Cat and the Canary” and “The Ghost Breakers; the gypsy in “North West Mounted Police”; Fred Astaire’s partner in “Second Chorus..; “Hold Back the Dawn,” where her brittle gaiety contrasted with the spinster schoolteacher, Olivia de Havilland; As Loxie Clayborne, a fiery Southern belle in de Mille’s “Reap the Wild Wind’’ was clearly designed to compensate her for not getting Scarlett O’Hara; a war drama, “So Proudly We Hail”; the slave girl again for de Mille’s mammoth “The Unconquered”; and then gave probably her best performance, in Renoir’s “Diary of a Chambermaid” husband Burgess Meredith, who also acted in it. But then Paulette’s a pretty gusty lady herself. The years may have mellowed her once-famous temper, but the driving, enthusiasm and contagious energy are clearly still there in strength. When her Hollywood career ended in the early-1950s, she moved to New York, appeared onstage opposite Melvyn Douglas in “Waltz of the Toreadors,” living for a long while in Paris, married Remarque and gave up any serious thought of working, though in ”66 she did play in an Italian Film, “The Time of Indifference.” She so often portrayed] mischievious girls with a great spirit of ; adventure and although she claims the | recent TV guesting was a one-shot, I ; have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of I her. But whatever Paulette does or does not do in the future, the Goddard legend is a part of Hollywood f history — and no one’s ready to write finis to her career quite yet. *** 38