Gladys George

Gladys George, born Gladys Clare Evans on September 13, 1904, in Patten, Maine, was an American actress who worked extensively in both stage and film throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Her parents, Sir Arthur Evans Clare, a noted Shakespearean actor, and his wife, Lady Alice, were British performers, and George began appearing on stage at the age of three, touring the United States alongside them.

George established herself as a stage actress during the 1920s and maintained an active Broadway presence from 1918 through 1941. Her theatrical credits include Personal Appearance, The Distant City, Lady in Waiting, The Milky Way, and The Betrothal. Personal Appearance proved to be a significant production in her career; it was during this Broadway run that her second husband, millionaire paper manufacturer Edward Fowler, ended their marriage in 1933 after discovering her with actor Leonard Penn, her leading man in the show.

Her film career ran parallel to her stage work and earned her considerable recognition. For her leading role in Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936), George received a Best Actress nomination at the 9th Academy Awards. She appeared in a wide range of films over the following decades, including Marie Antoinette (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), The Way of All Flesh (1940), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Hard Way (1943), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), He Ran All the Way (1951), Detective Story (1951), and Lullaby of Broadway (1951), the last of which marked her first appearance in a color film. Despite her Academy Award nomination, much of her screen work consisted of supporting roles.

George was married four times, and none of her marriages produced children. Her first husband was actor Ben Erway, whom she married on March 31, 1922, in Oakland, California, following an elopement; the couple remarried in San Luis Obispo on August 3 of the same year and divorced in October 1930. Her third husband was actor Leonard Penn, whom she married on September 19, 1935, in a probate court in New Haven, Connecticut. Her fourth and final husband was Kenneth Bradley, a hotel bellboy twenty years her junior, whom she married when she was 41.

George suffered from several serious health conditions in her later years, including throat cancer, heart disease, and cirrhosis of the liver. She died on December 8, 1954, in Los Angeles, California, from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 50, and was interred at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in Burbank, California.