25 Facts About Ruth Chatterton

Ruth Chatterton was an American stage, film, and television actress, aviator and novelist.

Ruth Chatterton was at her most popular in the early to mid-1930s, and in the same era gained prominence as an aviator, one of the few female pilots in the United States at the time.

Ruth Chatterton had several TV roles beginning in the late 1940s and became a successful novelist in the 1950s.

Ruth Chatterton was born in New York City on December 24,1892 to Walter, an architect, and Lillian Ruth Chatterton.

Ruth Chatterton accepted the challenge, and a few days later, joined the chorus of the stage show.

Ruth Chatterton soon dropped out of school to pursue a stage career.

Aged 16, Ruth Chatterton joined the Friend Stock Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she remained for six months.

In 1911, Ruth Chatterton made her Broadway stage debut in The Great Name.

Ruth Chatterton married her first husband, actor Ralph Forbes, on December 19,1924, in Manhattan.

Ruth Chatterton was able to make the transition from silents to sound because of her stage experience.

Later in 1929, Chatterton was loaned to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she starred in Madame X The film was a critical and box-office success, and effectively launched Chatterton's career.

The film was another critical and financial success, and Ruth Chatterton received a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

Later that year, Ruth Chatterton was voted the second female star of the year, behind only Norma Shearer, in a poll conducted by the West Coast film exhibitors.

Ruth Chatterton is well-remembered for the types of roles that came to an end with implementation of the Production Code in July 1934, but she went on to co-star in the film Dodsworth, for Samuel Goldwyn.

Ruth Chatterton came back in 1948 to do television until 1953.

Ruth Chatterton moved back to the Eastern United States, where she lived with her third husband, Barry Thomson.

Ruth Chatterton continued acting in Broadway productions and appeared in the London production of The Constant Wife, for which she received good reviews.

Ruth Chatterton raised French poodles and began a successful writing career.

Ruth Chatterton went on to write three more novels: The Betrayers, The Pride of the Peacock, and The Southern Wild.

Ruth Chatterton came out of retirement in the 1950s, and appeared on US television in several plays, including a TV adaptation of Dodsworth on Prudential Playhouse, alongside Mary Astor and Walter Huston.

Ruth Chatterton was one of the few woman aviators of her era, and was good friends with Amelia Earhart.

Ruth Chatterton flew solo across the US several times, and served as sponsor of the Sportsman Pilot Mixed Air Derby and the annual Ruth Chatterton Air Derby during the 1930s; she opened the National Air Races in Los Angeles in 1936.

Ruth Chatterton taught British film and stage actor Brian Aherne to fly, an experience he described at length in his 1969 autobiography A Proper Job.

Ruth Chatterton was cremated and is interred in a niche in the Lugar Mausoleum at Beechwoods Cemetery in New Rochelle, New York.

Ruth Chatterton is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.