Gertrude Michael

Gertrude Michael
Lillian Gertrude Michael (June 1, 1911 – December 31, 1964) was an American film, stage and television actress.
Biography
Michael was born in Talladega, Alabama to Carl H. Michael and his spouse. She graduated from Talladega High school at the age of 14. In her youth, she played piano and organ, and she began Little Theatres in two communities. She became a singer on the radio.
Michael attended the University of Alabama, where she studied law, and Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, pursuing a study of music. Then she went to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music to continue studying music. Her work there earned her a scholarship for studying five years in Italy.
In 1929 in Cincinnati, she made her stage debut in the Stuart Walker stock theater company. She appeared on Broadway in Rachel Crothers' Caught Wet (1931). She entered the movies playing Richard Arlen's fiancée in Wayward (1932), but her best-remembered role is probably either as Rita Ross in Murder at the Vanities (1934), one of the last pre-Code films, in which she sang an ode to marijuana ("Sweet Marijuana"), or as Alica Hatton, the snooty society girl in the Mae West comedy I'm No Angel (1933).
In 1937, Michael returned to the stage at the Cape Play House in Dennis, Massachusetts, with the lead in Damn Deborah.
Among her television appearances, Michael was seen on Fireside Theater 11 times from 1950 to 1955 and three times on Schlitz Playhouse. She also made a guest appearance on Perry Mason in 1958 as Helen Rucker in "The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary".
Personal life
Michael had an affair with writer Paul Cain (aka Peter Ruric). After the relationship ended, Cain, in his novel Fast One, based the character of the alcoholic lover on Michael.
Michael died on December 31, 1964, aged 53, in her Hollywood home.
Filmography
Film
Wayward (1932) - Mary Morton
Unashamed (1932) - Marjorie
Sailor Be Good (1933) - Kay Whitney
A Bedtime Story (1933) - Louise
Night of Terror (1933) - Sarah Rinehart
Ann Vickers (1933) - Mona Dolphin
I'm No Angel (1933) - Alicia Hatton
Cradle Song (1933) - Sister Marcella
Search for Beauty (1934) - Jean Strange
Bolero (1934) - Lady D'Argon
George White's Scandals (1934) - Miss Lee
Hold That Girl (1934) - Dorothy Lamont
I Believed in You (1934) - Pamela Banks
The Witching Hour (1934) - Margaret Price
Murder at the Vanities (1934) - Rita Ross
Murder on the Blackboard (1934) - Jane Davis
The Notorious Sophie Lang (1934) - Sophie Lang
Cleopatra (1934) - Calpurnia
Menace (1934) - Helen Chalmers
Father Brown, Detective (1934) - Evelyn Fischer
It Happened in New York (1935) - Vania Nardi
Four Hours to Kill! (1935) - Mrs. Sylvia Temple
The Last Outpost (1935) - Rosemary
Woman Trap (1936) - Barbara 'Buff' Andrews
Till We Meet Again (1936) - Elsa Duranyi
Forgotten Faces (1936) - Cleo Ashton
The Return of Sophie Lang (1936) - Sophie Lang aka Ethel Thomas
Second Wife (1936) - Virginia Howard
Make Way for a Lady (1936) - Miss Eleanor Emerson
Mr. Dodd Takes the Air (1937) - Jessica Stafford
Sophie Lang Goes West (1937) - Sophie Lang
Just like a Woman (1938) - Ann Heston
Star of the Circus (1938) - Yester
Hidden Power (1939) - Virginia Garfield
Parole Fixer (1940) - Collette Menthe
The Farmer's Daughter (1940) - Clarice Sheldon
I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby (1940) - Magda Delys
Slightly Tempted (1940) - Duchess
Prisoner of Japan (1942) - Toni Chase
Behind Prison Walls (1943) - Elinor Cantwell
Women in Bondage (1943) - District Director Schneider
Faces in the Fog (1944) - Nora Brooks
Three's a Crowd (1945) - Sophie Whipple
Allotment Wives (1945) - Gladys Smith
Club Havana (1945) - Hetty - Powder Room Attendant
That Wonderful Urge (1948) - Mrs. Whitson (uncredited)
Flamingo Road (1949) - Millie
Caged (1950) - Georgia Harrison
Darling, How Could You! (1951) - Mrs. Rossiter
Bugles in the Afternoon (1952) - May
No Escape (1953) - Olga Valerie Lewis
Women's Prison (1955) - Chief Matron Sturgess
The Continental Twist (1961) - Letitia Clunker
The Outsider (1961) - Clubwoman (uncredited) (final film role)
Television
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (3 episodes, 1952–1957) - the Duchess
Crown Theatre with Gloria Swanson (1 episode, 1954) - Lisa Jenssen
Cavalcade of America (1 episode, 1953) - Major Pauline Cushman
Meet Corliss Archer (1 episode, 1954) - Mrs. Wilson
The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse (1 episode, 1954) - Coralee
Private Secretary (1 episode, 1954) - Hollywood Star
The Ford Television Theatre (1 episode, 1954) - Belle
Four Star Playhouse (1 episode, 1955) - Fanny
Cameo Theatre (1 episode, 1955)
The New Adventures of Charlie Chan (1 episode, 1957) - Joyce Fenton
The 20th Century-Fox Hour (1 episode, 1957) - Kate
Perry Mason (1 episode, 1958) - Helen Rucker
Sea Hunt (1 episode, 1961) - Mrs. Friedrich
References
External links
Gertrude Michael at Virtual History
1911 births
1964 deaths
University of Alabama alumni
American film actresses
American stage actresses
American television actresses
Actresses from Cincinnati
Actresses from Greater Los Angeles
Actresses from Alabama
People from Talladega, Alabama
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers