page_title: Janet Gaynor
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Janet Gaynor / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of James Dunn and Janet Gaynor. The film's eventual title was Change of Heart (1934).
context_page_description: Janet Gaynor was an American film, stage and television actress and painter.
  Gaynor began her career as an extra in shorts and silent films. After signing with Fox Film Corporation in 1926, she rose to fame and became one of the biggest box office draws of the era. In 1929, she was the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: 7th Heaven, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and Street Angel. This was the only occasion on which an actress has won one Oscar for multiple film roles. Gaynor's career success continued into the sound film era, and she achieved a notable success in the original version of A Star Is Born, for which she received a second Best Actress Academy Award nomination.
  After retiring from acting in 1939, Gaynor married film costume designer Adrian with whom she had a son. She briefly returned to acting in films and television in the 1950s and later became an accomplished oil painter. In 1980, Gaynor made her Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of the 1971 film Harold and Maude and appeared in the touring theatrical production of On Golden Pond in February 1982.
context_section_description: By 1927, Gaynor was one of Hollywood's leading ladies. Her image was that of a sweet, wholesome, and pure young woman who was notable for playing her roles with depth and sensitivity. Her performances in 7th Heaven, the first of 12 films she would make with actor Charles Farrell; Sunrise, directed by F. W. Murnau; and Street Angel, also with Charles Farrell, earned her the first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1929, when for the first and only time the award was granted for multiple roles, on the basis of total recent work rather than for one particular performance. This practice was prohibited three years later by a new Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rule. Gaynor was not only the first actress to win the award, but at 22, was also the youngest until 1986, when actress Marlee Matlin, 21, won for her role in Children of a Lesser God.
  Gaynor was one of only a handful of established lead actresses who made a successful transition to sound films. In 1929, she was reteamed with Charles Farrell (the pair was known as "America's favorite love birds") for the musical film Sunny Side Up.
  During the early 1930s, Gaynor was one of Fox's most popular actresses and one of Hollywood's biggest box office draws. In 1931 and 1932, she and Marie Dressler were tied as the number-one box office draws. After Dressler's death in 1934, Gaynor held the top spot alone. She was often cited as a successor to Mary Pickford, and was cast in remakes of two Pickford films, Daddy Long Legs (1931) and Tess of the Storm Country (1932). Gaynor drew the line at a proposed remake of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which she considered "too juvenile".
  Gaynor continued to garner top billing for roles in State Fair (1933) with Will Rogers and The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935), which introduced Henry Fonda to the screen as Gaynor's leading man. However, when Darryl F. Zanuck merged his fledgling studio, Twentieth Century Pictures, with Fox Film Corporation to form 20th Century-Fox, her status became precarious and even tertiary to those of burgeoning actresses Loretta Young and Shirley Temple. According to press reports at the time, Gaynor held out on signing with the new 20th Century-Fox until her salary was raised from $1,000 a week to $3,000. The studio quickly issued a statement denying that Gaynor was holding out for more money. She quietly signed a new contract, the terms of which were never made public.
  Gaynor received top billing above Constance Bennett, Loretta Young, and Tyrone Power in Ladies in Love (1937) but her box office appeal had already begun to wane: once ranked number one, she had dropped to number 24. She considered retiring due to her frustration with studio executives, who continued to cast her in the same type of role that brought her fame while audiences' tastes were changing. After 20th Century-Fox executives proposed that her contract be renegotiated and she be demoted to featured player status, Gaynor left the studio, but her retirement plans were quashed when David O. Selznick offered her the leading role in a new film to be produced by his company, Selznick International Pictures. Selznick, who was friendly with Gaynor off-screen, was convinced that audiences would enjoy seeing her portray a character closer to her true personality. He believed that she possessed the perfect combination of humor, charm, vulnerability, and innocence for the role of aspiring actress Esther Blodgett (later "Vicki Lester") in A Star Is Born. Gaynor accepted the role. The romantic drama was filmed in Technicolor and co-starred Fredric March. Released in 1937, it was an enormous hit and earned Gaynor her second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress; she lost to Luise Rainer for The Good Earth.
  A Star Is Born revitalized Gaynor's career, and she was cast in the screwball comedy The Young in Heart (1938) with Paulette Goddard. That film was a modest hit, but by then Gaynor had definitely decided to retire. She later explained, "I had been working steadily for 17 long years, making movies was really all I knew of life. I just wanted to have tim
caption: With James Dunn in Change of Heart (1934)
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