Claudette Colbert (1905-1996)

Looking sultry in Cleopatra (1934).

�I�ve always believed that acting is instinct to start with. You either have it or you don�t.�

Vamping it up in The Sign of the Cross (1932).

�I will be eternally grateful to Mr. DeMille for The Sign of the Cross (1932). That changed everything. It proved I could play another kind of character.� (1935 New York Sun interview)

 

Simply stunning.

�It Happened One Night (1934) was really a fluke. Clark Gable was being punished by MGM, so they sent him to Columbia to make this film. All I wanted to do was get within two feet of Clark Gable. I never really read the script very much. But the movie started a whole new wave of comedies. Movies had about everything at that time, but what they didn�t have was normal-looking people who were funny.� (1974 Washington Post interview)

My favorite Colbert films: It Happened One Night (1934), Midnight (1939), The Palm Beach Story (1942)