Pauline Frederick

Pauline Frederick, born Pauline Beatrice Libbey on August 12, 1883, in Boston, Massachusetts, was an American stage and film actress whose Broadway career spanned from 1902 to 1937. The only child of Richard O. and Loretta C. Libbey, she was raised primarily by her mother after her parents separated during her toddler years and divorced around 1897. Her father worked as a yardmaster for the Old Colony Railroad before transitioning to sales. Frederick studied acting, singing, and dancing at Miss Blanchard's Finishing School in Boston, where she later graduated.

Her father actively discouraged her theatrical ambitions, urging her instead toward a career as an elocution teacher, and ultimately disinherited her when she pursued acting professionally. He died in 1922. To distance herself from his disapproval, she adopted the stage name Pauline Frederick and legally formalized the change in 1908. Her stage debut came at age 17 as a chorus girl in the farce The Rogers Brothers at Harvard, though she was dismissed shortly after. She secured additional small roles before illustrator Harrison Fisher, who described her as "the purest American beauty," helped her obtain more substantial parts. Known by the nickname "The Girl with the Topaz Eyes," Frederick took on lead roles in touring productions of The Little Gray Lady and The Girl in White in 1906.

Frederick made her film debut in 1915, already in her thirties, playing Donna Roma in The Eternal City. By that point she was an established stage star. In March 1927, she appeared in Madame X in London, a production that earned her strong critical notices. She successfully transitioned to sound films in 1929 and was cast as Joan Crawford's mother in This Modern Age in 1931. Finding work in sound films unsatisfying, she returned to Broadway in 1932 in When the Bough Breaks. Her Broadway credits also included The Masque of Kings, Her Majesty the Widow, The Bough Breaks, and The Guilty One, among other productions. She continued working in both film and stage throughout the remainder of her career, touring in the United States, Europe, and Australia.

Frederick was married five times. In 1909 she wed architect Frank Mills Andrews, and a daughter, also named Pauline, was born in 1910. She briefly stepped away from acting following the birth before returning to the stage in January 1913 in Joseph and His Brethren, the same year she divorced Andrews. Her second marriage, to playwright Willard Mack on September 27, 1917, ended in divorce in August 1920. She married her third husband, physician Dr. Charles A. Rutherford, in Santa Ana, California in 1922, and their divorce was finalized on January 6, 1925. Around this period she reportedly had a two-year affair with a then-struggling Clark Gable. On April 20, 1930, she married millionaire Hugh Chisholm Leighton, owner of hotel and Interstate News Company interests, in New York City; Leighton had the marriage annulled in December 1930. Her fifth husband, United States Army colonel Joseph A. Marmon, commander of the 16th Infantry Regiment, married Frederick in January 1934 and died on December 4, 1934.

Despite having reportedly earned $1 million from her work in silent films, Frederick filed for bankruptcy in 1933. On January 17, 1936, she underwent emergency abdominal surgery, and her health declined steadily in the years that followed. Her mother, to whom she had remained close throughout her life, died in 1937. Frederick suffered a fatal asthma attack on September 19, 1938, while recuperating at her aunt's home in Beverly Hills. A private funeral was held on September 23, 1938, in Hollywood, and she was buried at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Frederick has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard.