Jean Arthur
(born Oct. 17, 1900,
Plattsburgh
, N.Y., U.S.?died June 19, 1991,
Carmel
, Calif.) was an American
film
actress known for her cracked, throaty voice, which accentuated her charm and intelligence in a series of successful comedies.
After modeling and performing in small parts on the Broadway stage,
Arthur
made her screen debut in a silent western,
Cameo Kirby
(1923). She found her
niche
as a comedienne in the wacky film
The Whole Town’s Talking
(1935). Her screen persona as a no-nonsense, emotionally honest heroine proved to have wide appeal, and she starred in such
Frank Capra
social comedies as
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
(1936),
You Can’t Take It with You
(1938), and
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
(1939), as well as in such hits as
Only Angels Have Wings
(1939),
The Talk of the Town
(1942), and
The More the Merrier
(1943), which earned her an
Academy Award
nomination for best actress.
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When her movie contract expired in 1944, Arthur, who had a chronic case of camera jitters, gladly retired from film. She was lured back to Hollywood to star, with
Marlene Dietrich
, in a comedy of postwar Berlin,
Foreign Affair
(1948), and in the western classic
Shane
(1953). She portrayed a lawyer in her own television series,
The Jean Arthur Show,
in 1966 and made occasional appearances on Broadway during the 1970s before retiring completely from show business. She later taught
drama
at
Vassar College
, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and other schools.