Loretta Young
06/01/1913 to 12/08/2000
Born Gretchen Young, her parents separated and her mother moved Gretchen and her two sisters to California. One day at the age of 14, Gretchen (Loretta) answered the phone; the caller was seeking Gretchens sister Polly Ann for an acting role. Instead, the caller hired Gretchen. She was put under contract, had braces put on her teeth and had her name changed to Loretta Young.
In 1930, at the age of only 17, Loretta eloped with her co-star Grant Withers to Arizona. Less than a year later the marriage was annulled. In 1935, she was considered to be a very successful actress when she made The Call of the Wild (1935) with Clark Gable. They had an affair, and Loretta became pregnant. Because of the strict morality clauses in their contracts - and the fact that Clark Gable was married - they could not tell anybody except Loretta's mother. Loretta and her mother left for Europe where Loretta delivered a healthy baby girl on November 6, 1935, whom she named Judith. In 1940 Loretta married businessman Tom Lewis, and from then on the child was called Judy Lewis, although Tom Lewis never adopted her. Judy was brought up thinking that both parents had adopted her and did not know, until years later, that she was actually the biological daughter of Loretta and Clark Gable. Loretta also had two sons with Tom. She retired from films in 1953 and began a second, equally successful career as hostess of "The Loretta Young Show".
Loretta and Tom Lewis divorced in the early 1960's. Loretta enjoyed retirement, sleeping late, visiting her son Chris and daughter-in-law Linda, and travelling. She and her friend Josephine Alicia Saenz, ex-wife of John Wayne, travelled to India and saw the Taj Mahal. Loretta died in 2000 of ovarian cancer. |
