Gertrude Michael
Born: 1911-06-01 in Talladega, Alabama, USA
Died: 1964-12-31
Known For: Acting
Biography
Gertrude Michael (June 1, 1911, Talladega, Alabama – December 31, 1964, Beverly Hills, California) was an American film, stage and television actress. Born as Lillian Gertrude Michael in Talladega, Alabama, she reportedly graduated from high school at the age of 14. She became a radio singer on the radio. She attended the University of Alabama and Converse College, Cincinnati. Her childhood home in Talladega, Alabama was destroyed by fire in 2007. In 1929 in Cincinnati she made her stage debut in a stock company. She subsequently appeared on Broadway in Rachel Crothers' Caught Wet (1931). She entered the movies playing Richard Arlen's finaceé in Wayward (1932), but her best-remembered role is probably as Rita Ross in Murder at the Vanities (1934), one of the last pre-Code films, in which she sang an ode to marijuana (Sweet Marijuana). She had an affair with writer Paul Cain (aka Peter Ruric).After they broke up, Cain wrote the role of the alcoholic lover (based on Michael) in his only novel published during his lifetime, Fast One. Gertrude Michael died, aged 53, from undisclosed causes, in Beverly Hills, California. Description above from the Wikipedia article Gertrude Michael,licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography
1961
- The Continental Twist as Letitia Clunker
1960
- The Case of the Dangerous Robin as Kay Salisbury
1958
1957
- Perry Mason as Helen Rucker
1955
- The 20th Century Fox Hour
- Women's Prison as Chief Matron Sturgess
1953
- No Escape as Olga Valerie Lewis
1952
- Four Star Playhouse as Fanny
- Cavalcade of America as Major Pauline Cushman
- Bugles in the Afternoon as May
1951
- Hallmark Hall of Fame
- Schlitz Playhouse of Stars as The Duchess
- Darling, How Could You! as Mrs. Rossiter
1950
- Caged as Georgia Harrison
1949
- Flamingo Road as Millie
1945
- Club Havana as Hetty - Powder Room Attendant
- Three's a Crowd as Sophie Whipple
- Allotment Wives as Gladys Smith
1944
- Faces in the Fog as Nora Brooks
1943
- Women in Bondage as District Director Schneider
- Where Are Your Children? as Nell Wilson
- Behind Prison Walls as Elinor Cantwell
1942
- Prisoner of Japan as Toni Chase
1940
- I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby as Magda Delys
- Parole Fixer as Collette Menthe
- The Farmer's Daughter as Clarice Sheldon
- Slightly Tempted as Duchess
- Pound Foolish as Mrs. Irene Reynolds
1939
- Just like a Woman as Ann Heston
- Hidden Power as Virginia Garfield
1938
- Star of the Circus as Yester
1937
- Mr. Dodd Takes the Air as Jessica Stafford
- Sophie Lang Goes West as Sophie Lang
1936
- Woman Trap as Barbara 'Buff' Andrews
- Make Way for a Lady as Miss Eleanor Emerson
- Till We Meet Again as Elsa Duranyi
- The Return of Sophie Lang as Sophie Lang
- Forgotten Faces as Cleo / Harry's wife
- Second Wife as Virginia Howard
1935
- The Last Outpost as Rosemary Haydon
- Four Hours to Kill! as Mrs. Sylvia Temple
- It Happened in New York as Vania Nardi
1934
- Cleopatra as Calpurnia
- Hold That Girl as Dorothy Lamont
- Murder at the Vanities as Rita Ross
- Search for Beauty as Jean Strange
- Father Brown, Detective as Evelyn Fischer
- The Witching Hour as Margaret Price
- Menace as Helen Chalmers
- Murder on the Blackboard as Jane Davis
- George White's Scandals as Miss Lee
- I Believed in You as Pamela Banks
- The Notorious Sophie Lang as Sophie Lang
- Bolero as Lady D'Argon
1933
- I'm No Angel as Alicia Hatton
- Ann Vickers as Mona Dolphin
- Night of Terror as Sarah Rinehart
- A Bedtime Story as Louise
- Cradle Song as Marcella
- Sailor Be Good as Kay Whitney