Paulette Goddard

19th AUG 26

Silent Cinema

Next portrait is...
Paulette Goddard
3rd June 1910 - 23rd April 1990

Oh, I love this one so much! Modern Times is my absolute favourite silent movie. She acted in that one and in the Great Dictator with Charlie Chaplin. I think that I must have fallen a little in love with her when I first watched Modern Times as a child. She had this bright smile that pierced right through your heart.

Her very first appesrance in a film was in a Laurel and Hardy short from 1929. She had a flourishing career into the "Talkies" too, working alongside the greatest actors of their time, like Gary Cooper, James Stewart, and Olivia de Havilland.

Later in her life, in part thanks to her wealth, she became a well known socialite in New York City. She was a friend of Andy Warhol and was a collector of contemporary art.

She was a breast cancer survivor, and died at the age of 79 from heart failure.

Amongst her biggest legacies is a 20 million dollar donation to the New York University. The university named a residence hall in her honour, the Goddard Hall.

In one of my favourite movies, Chaplin, from 1992, where Robert Downey Jr. has one of his best performances ever, Paulette was portrayed by the gorgeous Diane Lane.