Louise Platt

Louise Platt (August 3, 1915 – September 6, 2003) was an American actress who worked across theater, film, and television. Born in Stamford, Connecticut, she grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, where her father served as a dental surgeon in the Navy.

Platt began her professional acting career in stock theater in Suffern, New York, before performing in stock productions across a range of states from Maine to Virginia to Minnesota. Her Broadway career spanned from 1936 to 1949 and included three productions in her debut year alone: Promise, Spring Dance, and A Room in Red and White. She subsequently appeared in In Clover in 1937 and Five Alarm Waltz in 1941. After returning to the New York stage in 1942 following a period in Hollywood, she took on roles in Anne of the Thousand Days in 1948, in which she worked alongside Rex Harrison, and The Traitor in 1949.

Following her initial two years on Broadway, Platt moved to Hollywood in 1938 and appeared in approximately a half-dozen films. Among these, she is most closely associated with her portrayal of an officer's pregnant wife in John Ford's Stagecoach (1939). In the 1950s she transitioned to television, where her credits included two appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and a recurring role as Ruth Holden on The Guiding Light.

Platt was first married to theater director Jed Harris, a union that produced a daughter. On August 25, 1950, she married director Stanley Gould in North Guilford, Connecticut; that marriage also produced a daughter and lasted until Gould's death. Platt died on September 6, 2003, at a hospital in Greenport, New York, at the age of 88.