Claudette Colbert ( 13 September 1903 – 30 July 1996) was a French-American stage and film actress, and a leading lady for two decades.

Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures. Initially associated with Paramount Pictures, later gradually Colbert shifted to a freelance actor. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in It Happened One Night (1934), and also received Academy Award nominations in Private Worlds (1935) and Since You Went Away (1944). With her round apple-face, Colbert was known as the expert screwball comedienne, and forged a decent film career for herself in versatility playing characters that ranged from vamps to housewives that encompassed melodrama, led to her becoming the industry's biggest box-office star in 1938 and 1942. During her successful career, Colbert played in more than sixty movies.

At the mid 1950s she largely retired from the screen in favour of television and stage work, earning a Tony Award nomination for The Marriage-Go-Round in 1959. Her career tapered off during the early 1960s, but in the late 1970s, she experienced a career resurgence on theater, earning a Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago theatre work in 1980. Also for television work in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987), she won a Golden Globe Award and received an Emmy Award nomination.

Personal life

In 1928, Colbert married Norman Foster, an actor and director, who co-starred with her in the Broadway show The Barker, and in the 1930 film Young Man of Manhattan which received negative reviews as one of her weakest leading men. Their marriage remained a secret for many years while living in separate homes. In Los Angeles, Colbert shared her home with her mother Jeanne Chauchoin, but her domineering mother disliked Foster and did not allow him into their home. Colbert and Foster divorced in 1935 in Mexico.

Four months after her divorce, Colbert married Joel Pressman, a surgeon at UCLA, a throat specialist. The marriage lasted 33 years, until his death of liver cancer in 1968. Colbert gave the Beechcraft Bonanza single-engine plane to Pressman as a present. They purchased a ranch in Northern California, where her husband kept show cattle.

Jeanne Chauchoin let Colbert's brother Charles serve as Colbert's agent. Colbert spent many of her life getting Jeanne's approval. Charles used the surname Wendling which was borrowed from Rose Wendling who was Jeanne's paternal grandmother. He served as Colbert's business manager for a time, and was credited with negotiating some of her more lucrative contracts in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Colbert was generally respected for her professionalism, with the New York Times stating that she was known for giving "110 percent" to any project she worked on. Hedda Hopper wrote that Colbert placed her career "ahead of everything save possibly her marriage", with a strong sense of what was best for her, and a "deep rooted desire to be in shape, efficient and under control". The writer A. Scott Berg described Colbert had "helped define femininity for her generation with her chic manner." Colbert once said, "I’ve been in the Claudette Colbert business a long time."

In 1954 her aunt Emilie Loew died in the U.S. Virtually retiring from motion picture industry since mid 1950s, she was still financially solvent enough. Despite having a country house in Palm Springs for staying on weekends, she rented a cottage in Cap Ferrat, southeastern France. Adman said, "Claudette was extravagant, I never, ever saw her question the price of anything." In 1963, Colbert sold her residence located in Holmby Hills (western Los Angeles), so Joel Pressman rented a small house in Beverly Hills.

In 1958 she met Verna Hull, a wealthy painter/photographer and the stepdaughter of a Sears Roebuck heiress. They had nine-year friendship and painted together, traveled together and even rented twin penthouses back in New York. They had a mutual interest in art. When Colbert bought a house in Barbados in early 1960s, Hull also bought a modest house next door.

For years, Colbert divided her time between her apartment in Manhattan and her vacation home in Speightstown, Barbados. The latter purchased from British gentleman was the island’s only plantation house fronting the beach. Its summer house was called "Bellerive" as nickname. However, her permanent address remained Manhattan. Later in life, she was also a staunch Republican and conservative.

Colbert's mother Jeanne died in 1970 and her brother Charles died in 1971, so her only surviving relative was a niece, Coco Lewis, Charles' daughter.

Following a series of small strokes during the last three years of her life, Colbert died in 1996 at her second home in Barbados, where she was employing one housekeeper and two cook at that time. Colbert’s body was shipped to New York for cremation. A requiem mass was held at St. Vincent Ferrer church in New York City later. Her ashes were buried in the Parish of St. Peter Cemetery, Barbados, along with her mother and second husband.

The childless Colbert left most of her estate, estimated at $3.5 million and also including her Manhattan apartment and another home Bellerive, to a long-time friend, Helen O'Hagan, a retired director of corporate relations at Saks Fifth Avenue, whom Colbert had met in 1961 on the set of the her last film and became best friend from circa 1970. Though O'Hagan was financially comfortable without the generous bequest, Bellerive was sold at over $2 million to a midwestern U.S. couple. Her remaining assets were distributed between three heirs: $150,000 to her niece Coco Lewis; a trust worth more than $100,000 to UCLA for Pressman’s memory; and $75,000 to Marie Corbin, Colbert's Barbadian housekeeper. After Colbert's death, rumors about the actress's purported lesbian relationships, began to circulate in the international media. In response, O'Hagan told that Colbert was "a man's lady".