Claudette Colbert (1905-1996)

Looking sultry in Cleopatra (1934).

“I’ve always believed that acting is instinct to start with. You either have it or you don’t.”

Vamping it up in The Sign of the Cross (1932).

“I will be eternally grateful to Mr. DeMille for The Sign of the Cross (1932). That changed everything. It proved I could play another kind of character.” (1935 New York Sun interview)

 

Simply stunning.

“It Happened One Night (1934) was really a fluke. Clark Gable was being punished by MGM, so they sent him to Columbia to make this film. All I wanted to do was get within two feet of Clark Gable. I never really read the script very much. But the movie started a whole new wave of comedies. Movies had about everything at that time, but what they didn’t have was normal-looking people who were funny.” (1974 Washington Post interview)

My favorite Colbert films: It Happened One Night (1934), Midnight (1939), The Palm Beach Story (1942)