Ruth Chatterton

Vocation

Notable

Traits

Family

American actress, a writer and a pilot. She took her first stage job as a dare at 14 in a New York chorus line. Her Broadway debut, four years later, was in a turkey that ran for 21 days. By age 21, she was a star in a Henry Miller production. Her series of plays included success in "Daddy Long Legs," Come Out of the Kitchen" and "The Constant Wife." Her films, from 1928, included "The Royal Divorce," "Madam X" and "Sarah and Son," 1930, the last two of which won her nominations for an Oscar. Her last film was "Dodsworth," 1936. She was a dulcet-voiced movie queen plus a tough-minded feminist and pilot of her own plane. In 1950 she became noted as a serious novelist when her first book, "Homeward Borne" became a best-seller. She wrote three more novels, the last in 1958. Chatterton made three marriages, to actors Ralph Forbes, George Brent and Barry Thomson. She was widowed from the third in 1960. Chatterton died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1961 at her home in Redding, CT. Link to Wikipedia biography