Signed by Columbia in 1933, she played second fiddle to action hero Jack Holt (in 1934's Whirlpool and The Defense Rests before John Ford's (on loan to the studio) cast her in The Whole Town's Talking (1935), a brilliant comedy-drama that allowed the actress to demonstrate her heretofore unsuspected comic ability. Frank Capra's built on the Arthur image established in Ford's film by featuring her in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can't Take It With You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), in roles that combined no-nonsense pragmatism with romantic vulnerability. Arthur also played Calamity Jane for Cecil B. DeMille in The Plainsman (1936), and quickly became a favorite of Hollywood's leading directors in such prime 1930s films as Easy Living, History Is Made at Night (both 1937), and Only Angels Have Wings (1938).
The early 1940s offered Arthur two comic gems for director George Stevens: In The Talk of the Town (1942) and The More the Merrier (1943, for which she received an Oscar nomination), she gave seemingly effortless, hilarious performances. Extremely likeable and piquantly sexy, with one of the most distinctive voices in Hollywood history, she completely erased the memory of the bland ingenue of the late 1920s and early 1930s. (Her face looked best from the right side, and once a star, she insisted she be photographed that way.)
A dispute with Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn drove Arthur from movies in 1944, though her reputation for being "difficult" followed her to New York, where she deserted the stage production of "Born Yesterday," leaving the role open for newcomer Judy Holliday. (She returned to Broadway in 1950 to play Peter Pan.) She made only two more films: A Foreign Affair (1948), for director Billy Wilder, in which, as a prim congresswoman from the Corn Belt, she gets delightfully drunk and sings the Iowa State Song; and Shane (1953), again with George Stevens, in a decidedly unglamorous role as the frontier housewife whose love for rancher Van Heflin is challenged by deep stirrings aroused by visiting gunfighter Alan Ladd.
She made occasional stage appearances and taught drama, then in 1966 she starred as an attorney in a CBS sitcom, "The Jean Arthur Show." Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee wrote the play "First Monday in October" for Arthur. It offered a meaty role about the then-imaginary first female Supreme Court Justice, but she walked out mid-rehearsal, and retreated to her Carmel home. Her second husband (1932-49) was Frank Ross, who produced or coproduced several of her pictures, including The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), a screwball comedy not to be confused with the similarly titled porno flick of the 1970s. Arthur lived out her later years as a recluse, but came to enjoy some of the latter-day recognition she received for her outstanding work on-screen.
Personal Quotes:
"I am not an adult, that's my explanation of myself. Except when I am working on a set, I have all the inhibitions and shyness of the bashful, backward child...Unless I have something very much in common with a person, I am lost. I am swallowed up in my own silence."
Trivia:
Director George Stevens famously called her "One of the greatest comediennes the screen has ever seen" while Frank Capra credited her as "My favorite actress".
Was a leading contender for the coveted role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939).
As her star began to decline, she was replaced by Rita Hayworth as Columbia Pictures' top female star. Coincidentally, the two stars share the same birthday (October 17).
Later,
Kenaz
