CAROLE LOMBARD Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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CAROLE LOMBARD

Name: Carole Lombard                                                                 
Birth name: Jane Alice Peters                                                         
Born: 6 October 1908 Fort Wayne, Indiana                                             
Died: 16 January 1942 Mount Potosi, near Las Vegas, Nevada                           
                                                                                     
Carole Lombard (October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942), born Jane Alice Peters in     
Fort Wayne, Indiana, was an Oscar-nominated American actress. She was                 
particularly noted for her comedic roles in several classic films of the 1930s.       
                                                                                     
Her parents were Frederick C. Peters and Elizabeth Knight. Lombard's paternal         
grandfather, John Claus Peters, was the son of German immigrants, Claus Peters       
and Caroline Catherine Eberlin. One distant branch of Lombard's mother's family       
originated in England; her ancestors John and Martha Cheney emigrated to North       
America in 1634.                                                                     
                                                                                     
She was the youngest of three children. She spent her early childhood in a           
sprawling, two-story house at 704 Rockhill Street in Fort Wayne, near the St.         
Mary's River. Her parents divorced and her mother took the three children to Los     
Angeles in 1914, where Lombard eventually attended Fairfax High School. She was       
elected "May Queen" in 1924. She quit school to pursue acting full time, but         
graduated from Fairfax in 1927.                                                       
                                                                                     
Lombard was a second generation Bahá'í who formally declared her membership in     
1938.                                                                                 
                                                                                     
Lombard made her film debut at the age of twelve after she was seen playing           
baseball in the street by director Allan Dwan; he cast her as a tomboy in A           
Perfect Crime (1921). In the 1920s, she worked in several low-budget productions     
credited as 'Jane Peters', and then later as 'Carol Lombard'. In 1925, she was       
signed as a contract player with Fox Film Corporation (which merged with Daryl       
Zanuck's Twentieth Century Productions in 1935). She also worked for Mack             
Sennett and Pathé Pictures. She became a well-known actress and made a smooth       
transition to sound films, starting with High Voltage (1929). In 1930, she began     
working for Paramount Pictures.                                                       
                                                                                     
Lombard became one of Hollywood's top comedy actresses in the 1930s. Despite her     
glamorous looks, she was a natural comedienne, and was not afraid to look silly       
for the sake of being funny. In comedies like Twentieth Century (1934) directed       
by Howard Hawks, My Man Godfrey (1936) directed by Gregory La Cava, and Nothing       
Sacred (1937) directed by William A. Wellman, she received praise from critics       
and was described as one of the key exponents of screwball comedy. However, she       
played a dramatic role in Vigil in the Night, starring as Nurse Anne Lee             
opposite Brian Aherne. Produced by David O. Selznick, Nothing Sacred was her         
only film made in Technicolor. Lombard was offered the role of Ellie Andrews in       
It Happened One Night (1934), but the filming schedule conflicted with that of       
Bolero and she was unable to accept.