Profile of Jetta Goudal on Famous Like Me

Jetta Goudal (July 12, 1891 - January 14, 1985) was a Dutch-born French actress who became a major Hollywood star.

Born Julie Henriette Goudeket in Amsterdam, Netherlands of French origins, she began her acting career on stage, traveling across Europe with various theater companies. In 1918, Julie Goudeket left a Europe ravaged by World War I to settle in New York City in the United States. She first appeared on Broadway in 1921 using the stage name Jetta (pronounced Zah-hetta) Goudal. After meeting director Sidney Olcott, who encouraged her to try the cinema, she took on a bit part in his 1922 film production "Timothy's Quest." Convinced to move to the West Coast, Goudal appeared in two more Olcott films in the ensuing three years. She quickly earned praise for her film work, especially for her performance in 1925's "Salome of the Tenements," a film based on the Anzia Yezierska novel about life in New York's Jewish Lower East Side. Goudal then worked in the Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky co-production of "The Spaniard" and her growing fame brought her to the attention of producer/director Cecil B. DeMille.

Jetta Goudal did several highly successful and acclaimed films for DeMille that made her one of the top box office draws of the late 1920s. The Gallic beauty captivated moviegoers and stories and photos of her began filling major film magazines. However, she was a bit of a "diva" whom DeMille claimed was so difficult to work with that he eventually fired her and cancelled their contract. Goudal filed a lawsuit for breach of contract against him and his DeMille Pictures Corporation. Although DeMille claimed her conduct had caused numerous and costly production delays, in a landmark ruling Goudal won the suit when DeMille was unwilling to provide his studio's financial records to support his claim of financial losses.

Goudal appeared in 1928's "The Cardboard Lover," produced by William Randolph Hearst and his actress/mistress, Marion Davies. In 1929 she starred in "Lady of the Pavements" directed by D.W. Griffith and in 1930, Jacques Feyder directed Goudal in her only French language film, a made-in-Hollywood production titled "Le Spectre vert."

However, because of her audaciousness in suing DeMille and her high-profile activisim in the Actors' Equity Association campaign for the theatre and film industry to accept a closed shop, some of the Hollywood studios turned their backs on Jetta Goudal. In 1932, at age forty-one, she made her last screen appearance in a talkie, co-starring with Will Rogers in the Fox Film Corporation production of "Business and Pleasure." Unfortunately for Jetta Goudal, her powerful presence on the silent screen was lost to both age and to a voice with a thick French accent that in talkies spelled the end to her film career.

In 1930, she had married Harold Grieve, an art director and founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. When her film career ended, she joined her husband in running a successful interior design business. They remained married until her passing in 1985 in Los Angeles. She is interred next to her husband in a private room at the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of the Angels, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

In recognition of her contribution to the motion picture industry, Jetta Goudal has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6333 Hollywood Blvd.

Partial filmography

• Timothy's Quest (1922)
• The Green Goddess (1923)
• Open All Night (1924)
• The Spaniard (1925)
• Salome of the Tenements (1925)
• The Coming of Amos (1925)
• The Road to Yesterday (1925)
• White Gold (1927)
• The Forbidden Woman (1927)
• The Cardboard Lover (1928)
• Lady of the Pavements (1929)
• Le Spectre vert (1930)
• Business and Pleasure (1932)

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Jetta Goudal