Ann Harding

Infobox actor
name = Ann Harding


inage size = 200px
caption = in "Biography of a Bachelor Girl" (1935)
birthname = Dorothy Walton Gatley
birthdate = birth date|1901|8|7
birthplace = San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
deathdate = Dda|1981|9|1|1901|8|7
deathplace = Sherman Oaks, California, U.S.
restingplace = Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA
Plot: Court of Remembrance, furthest south section, G63109
restingplacecoordinates = 34.15007, -118.31974 (hddd.dddd)
yearsactive = Stage 1921-1927; 1964
Film 1929-1956
TV 1952-1965
spouse = Harry Bannister (1926 - 1932)
(divorced)
Werner Janssen (1937 - 1962)
(divorced)

Ann Harding (August 7, 1901 – September 1, 1981) was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress.

Early years

Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life. Her father, George C. Gatley, was born in Maine and served in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. He died in San Francisco, California in 1931. The family finally settled in New York, and young Dorothy attended Bryn Mawr College.

Acting career

Following school, she found employment as a script reader. She began acting and made her Broadway debut in 1921. She soon became a leading lady.

In 1929, she made her film debut in "Paris Bound", opposite Fredric March. In 1931, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for "Holiday".

First under contract to Pathé, which was subsequently absorbed by RKO studio, Harding co-starred with such luminaries as Ronald Colman, Myrna Loy, Herbert Marshall, Leslie Howard, Richard Dix, and Gary Cooper, often on loan out to other studios, such as MGM and Paramount. At RKO, Harding, along with Helen Twelvetrees and Constance Bennett, comprised a stellar trio who specialized in the "women's pictures" genre.

Her performances were often heralded by the critics, who cited her diction and stage experience as assets to the screen, and she became one of Hollywood's highest salaried stars. In only her second film, "Her Private Affair", in which Harding portrayed a wife of questionable morality, she undeniably projected a captivating and charismatic presence -- in spite of several scenes in which her untempered histrionic acting was apparent. However, the film was an enormous commercial success, and with gratifying results, she refined her stage acting which became more appropriately nuanced for the screen.

Such was her talent and her increasing sensitivity to the new medium of the "talking picture" that critics offered these encomiums for her work in several early 1930s films:

:"Miss Harding is a sensitive performer and possesses a complete and sympathetic understanding of her rôle. Her voice has a vibrant, dramatic quality."

:"..."Devotion", the present production at the Mayfair, succeeds in being quite a pleasing entertainment, owing principally to the excellent cast, headed by the radiant and talented Ann Harding..."

:"... there is no little fascination aroused by Miss Harding's restrained portrayal."

:"Throughout this film Miss Harding gives a charmingly restrained impersonation." (New York Times)

During this period, she was generally considered to be one of cinema's most beautiful women, with her long waist-length blonde hair as one of her most noted physical attributes. Her films during her peak include "The Animal Kingdom", "Peter Ibbetson", "When Ladies Meet", "The Flame Within", and "Biography of a Bachelor Girl."

Harding, however, eventually became stereotyped as the innocent, self-sacrficing, young woman, and with lukewarm responses by both the critics and the public to several of her later 1930s films, she eventually quit making movies when she married the conductor Werner Janssen in 1937. However, she returned in 1942 to make "Eyes in the Night" and to take secondary roles in other movies. In 1956, she again starred with Fredric March, this time in "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit".

The 1960s marked her return to Broadway after an absence of decades -- she had last appeared there in 1927. In 1962, she starred in "General Seeger", directed by and co-starring George C. Scott, and in 1964 she appeared in "Abraham Cochrane". Both productions had astonishingly brief runs, with the former play lasting a mere three performances (including previews).

Broadway stage credits

External links

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* [http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=912 Photographs of Ann Harding]