Young, Loretta

Gretchen Young got her first role when she was only one year old: she “played” the baby in swaddling clothes. From the age of three, she starred in a movie with her older sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young .

Gretchen studied at the convent school, but returned to the cinema at age 14. The first serious role in 1927 in the movie " Capricious, but Pretty " allowed her to sign a contract with First National, the predecessor of Warner Brothers . Then she changed her name Gretchen to Loretta.

At the age of 17, she ran away from home and secretly married the actor Grant Withers . A year later, the marriage was annulled, but Loretta still played with Withers in the film "Too Young for Marriage."

In 1935, she gave birth to a daughter, Judy, from movie star Clark Gable in the strictest secrecy, since he was married at the time. Those who knew about Gable’s fatherhood believed that Judy was the result of an ordinary affair. However, in 2015, young daughter-in-law Young Linda Lewis said that before her death, Young admitted to her that there was no affair: when they both starred in the movie “ Call of the Ancestors, ” Gable raped her, but Young considered herself to some extent guilty of this, so claimed to provoke Gable herself. Young absolutely did not want to harm Gable's career or her own, but at the same time she had concerns that the bosses of the Twentieth Century Pictures, with whom she had a contract, would force her to have an abortion, which, being a devout Catholic, I could not allow it. In the end, Young, her sisters and her mother developed a carefully thought-out plan to avoid publicity, but at the same time leave the child. First, Young temporarily left the cinema, and after a while, when it was already impossible to hide her stomach, she went on vacation to England and returned to the United States just before the birth, where she and her mother settled in a small house in Venice in California, allegedly for the reason “ disease ”: for this, she gave the Hollywood press an interview, lying in bed and covered with many blankets to hide her stomach. Judith was also born in Venice on November 6, 1935. The girl was named in honor of the Apostle Judah Thaddeus . Three weeks after giving birth, Young returned to Hollywood, and a few months later, Judith was placed in St. Elizabeth’s orphanage in a suburb of Los Angeles. When she was 19 months old, Young's mother “tracked down” Judith, and Young herself played a small “play”: she officially adopted Judith, and for journalist Luelle Parsons told a fictitious story for credibility that she allegedly adopted two children, but was then forced to return one of them biological mother.

Nevertheless, not everyone in Hollywood managed to fool with this “performance” and very many people guessed who the father of the child was. Those who directly knew about Gable’s fatherhood and saw Judith noted their similarity in appearance, which became very noticeable as she grew older: in particular, Judit’s auricles were as protruding as Gable’s. Gable and Young themselves have never publicly admitted that they are biological parents of Judith. Young first spoke about this only in 1999, when she told everything to her biographer Joan Wester Anderson, who was preparing to publish her biography (because of this, Anderson, at the request of Young, published a biography only after the death of the actress).

The greatest success was achieved in the 1940s in such films as “Farmer's Daughter” (1947) and “ Bishop 's Wife ” (1947).

The last time Loretta Young appeared on the big screen in 1953 in the movie "It Happens Every Thursday" and in the same year she began performing in her own drama series "The Loretta Young Show" on NBC. The series lasted for eight years, and each of the series began with a spectacular release of a star dressed in fluttering outfits. The series brought the actress three Emmy Awards. Loretta Young left show business in 1963, devoting herself to Catholic charity. However, in the 1980s, she returned to the small screen. Her last appearance on the screen happened in 1989, in the movie “Lady in the Corner”.

Died of ovarian cancer on August 12, 2000 at her stepsister’s house in Santa Monica . She was buried in the family site of the cemetery of the Holy Cross in the Californian city of Culver City .

• Oscar

1948 - Best actress for the film “Farmer's Daughter”

1950 - Best Actress for the film “Come to the Stable” (nomination)

• Golden Globe :

1959 - Best TV show for the Write Loretta show.

1987 - Best actress of a mini-series or film on TV for the film "Christmas Eve"

1990 - Best actress of a mini-series or film on TV for the film “Lady in the Corner” (nomination)

Young has two stars on the Los Angeles Walk of Fame: one for his films, and the second for his work on TV.