Legend: Loretta Young

by Susan King

Happy birthday Loretta Young!

Loretta Young had the best guest bathroom. 

Flashback to a cold late afternoon in December 1986. I was on staff at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner — the paper was shuttered in 1989 — assigned to interview Young who had come out of a 23-year retirement to do a NBC holiday movie, “Christmas Eve” with Trevor Howard. Entering the guest bathroom in her Beverly Hills mansion was pure glam. The toilet looked like a vintage chair from Versailles. I really had stepped back into the Golden Age of Hollywood. 

Young, who was born Jan. 6, 1913, didn’t waltz down a staircase in designer dress to meet me as she had from 1953-63 on her popular “The Loretta Young Show” and the “New Loretta Young Show” anthology series. But the then 73-year-old walked into the living room every bit a star. Her hair was swept up in a bun. Her dress was tasteful and stylish. Her legs were long. She looked radiant. She quickly made her way over to the bar to get one of the many glasses of water she drank a day to keep hydrated and healthy. A smoker since the age of eight — yes, you read that right — she had quit habit around this time. 

Over the next 90 minutes, the gracious actress talked about her earliest memories of filmmaking as an extra on the 1921 Valentino classic, “The Sheik,” explaining that he would stop by when the extras were having lunch to take children on his horse. Young talked warmly of the Man of a Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney, who played her adoptive father in the 1928 drama “Laugh, Clown, Laugh.” She was all of 14 when the picture began production; she was playing a woman being pursued by Nils Asther, as Chaney realizes he has less than paternal feelings for her.

Being so young, the actress explained, she still had a boyish body. So, Chaney made her a body suit that brought shape and maturity to her slight frame. In fact, he became a surrogate father to Young, who would later say “I shall be beholden to that sensitive, sweet man until I die.”

She soon grew into her body and became one of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of though she was often reviewed more for her beauty than her acting ability. She was enormously popular in films for nearly two decades starring in everything from comedies (1947’s “The Bishop’s Wife”),  dramas (1938’s “Suez”), bio-pics (1939’s “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell” ), thrillers (1946’s “The Stranger”) and Westerns (1948’s “Rachel and the Stranger”), finally winning best actress for the 1947 hit comedy, “The Farmer’s Daughter,” as a feisty Swedish-American farm-girl who becomes a maid for a political family, only to become a U.S. Congresswoman.

Over the years, the devout Catholic developed a reputation for being anything but a shrinking violent. Her daughter-in-law Linda Lewis told me in a 2013 L.A. Times interview that “she was beautiful, ethereally beautiful and there was a delicacy to her. But she was stubborn when it came to what she thought was right for her. She actually mentions in one of her interviews that after a while you get tired being reviewed for your cheekbones.”

Her son Chris Lewis, who died in 2021, noted “she didn’t listen to her bosses much. When she got a part, she would go to the costume department and have a hand in how the costumes were made. She took a hand in her makeup and her hair…She knew what was right for her until the end.”

A 1987 installment of A&E’s “Biography” series stated that Young “remains a symbol of beauty, serenity, and grace. But behind the glamour and stardom is a woman of substance whose true beauty lies in her dedication to her family, her faith, and her quest to live life with a purpose."

For decades, rumors swirled that her “adopted” daughter Judy Lewis was her child with actor Clark Gable, conceived during the production of 1935’s “The Call of the Wild.” Young told Lewis the truth in 1966; Lewis revealed the secret in her 1994 book, “Uncommon Knowledge,” which caused a rift between mother and daughter. Finally, Young’s authorized biography “Forever Young: The Life, Loves and Enduring Faith of a Hollywood Legend,’ which was published after her death in 2000 at the age of 87, she acknowledged Judy Lewis was her child with Gable. However, in 2015, Linda Lewis noted that there was “no consensual intimate contact” between her mother-in-law and Gable. Young had learned the term “date rape” at the age of 85 and realized that is what happened to her. 

Young earned a Golden Globe for “Christmas Eve”; she would go on to make one more TV movie, 1989’s “Lady in the Corner,” for which she was nominated for another Globe. She would retire and move to Palm Springs. In 1993 she married legendary dress designer Jean Louis who had created the gowns for her TV series. The marriage lasted until his death in 1997.

Film critic Rex was one of Young’s BBF’s describing her in 2013 as “so open and honest as a friend. She had this built-in sense of warmth that would have thawed a snowstorm,” adding that “people just stopped” when they saw her in public. “Their mouths opened. She is one of the most recognizable faces. Right up until the end, she was beautiful, youthful and vibrant. She was socially conscious. She was very tuned into things. She was not one of those people who live in a dark room watching her old movies.”

If you are looking for some Young movies to watch for her birthday, check out these vehicles:

“Platinum Blonde”: Though she has top billing in the 1931 pre-Code Frank Capra comedy, then 18-year-old- Young ended up taking a back seat to blonde bombshell Jean Harlow. Still, Young has tremendous chemistry with the film’s leading man Robert Williams.

“Bedtime Story”: Though you’ll know exactly how this 1941 romantic comedy will end, it’s fun to watch Fredric March and Loretta Young playing an actress and her playwright hubby. After announces during a curtain call, they are retiring to live on a farm, she discovers March is working on another play. Irene, uncredited, designed Young’s gorgeous clothes. 

“Come to the Stable”: This heartwarming 1949 comedy finds Loretta Young and Celeste Holm has two nuns who arrive in a small New England town during the winter intent on opening a children’s hospital there. The film reunited Young with her “Bishop’s Wife” director Henry Koster. The box office hit earned seven Oscar nominations including best actress for Young and supporting actress for Holm and Elsa Lanchester. According to TCM.com, Young “quickly began to annoy much of her fellow cast and crew by unofficially appointing herself as a consultant on the film, watching over the representation of all things Catholic with a pious eagle eye. “

“Key to the City”: Young and Gable reunited 15 years after “Call of the Wild” for this serviceable romantic comedy as two mayors who meet and fall in love during a mayor’s conference in San Francisco. According to TCM.com: “Whatever their past history, Gable and Young were cordial during the filming of “Key to the City,” and had nothing but complimentary things to say about each other.”

Young had invited Judy Lewis to the set to meet Gable. but she was more interested in going to summer camp. When she was 15, Gable came to Young’s abode to meet and talk with Lewis; of course, she didn’t have a clue that was her father. 

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Susan King was a film/TV/theater writer at the Los Angeles Times for 26 years specializing in Classic Hollywood.