Loretta Young had one of the great movie faces, with luminous gray eyes, apple cheeks and full lips that lent a suggestion of hidden sensuality to her "perfect lady" image. She was also an intelligent and resourceful actress, as well as a shrewd businesswoman capable of bold decisions that would advance her interests. (In the mid-1950s she became the first Oscar®-winning actress to have her own dramatic series on television.) Her combination of delicate beauty, spirituality and fierce will to succeed earned her such nicknames as "Steel Butterfly" and "Iron Madonna."

After a long apprenticeship that began in silent films, Young emerged in the 1930s as a radiant young leading lady. She later developed into a seasoned performer and one of Hollywood's most glamorous stars, hitting her peak in the late '40s. She won a Best Actress Academy Award for The Farmer's Daughter (1947), in which she plays a Swedish domestic worker who runs for Congress, and was equally charming as the neglected yet devoted spouse of another delightful comedy, The Bishop's Wife (1947). In the Western Rachel and the Stranger (1948), she is compelling as a pioneer bondswoman desired by two men. As the enterprising nun of Come to the Stable (1949), for which she received another Oscar® nomination, she once again played a character reflecting her own blend of fragility and strength.

Born Gretchen Michaela Young in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1912, she moved to Hollywood with her mother, Gladys, and sisters Polly Ann and Elizabeth Jane (later billed as Sally Blane) after her parents had separated. A younger brother, John, moved in with another family and was raised by them. After Gladys remarried, a half-sister, Georgiana, joined Loretta's family; Georgiana would later become Mrs. Ricardo Montalban.

Gladys quickly found work for the sisters as child actresses in films, and Gretchen made her debut at age four in an uncredited bit in The Only Way (1919). Her movie career began in earnest, and by accident, when she answered a telephone call from director Mervyn LeRoy asking her sister Polly Ann to appear in a role in Naughty But Nice (1927), starring Colleen Moore. Since Polly Ann wasn't available, Gretchen took the role instead.

It was Moore who suggested the name change, and Gretchen appeared as "Loretta Young" for the first time in The Whip Woman (1928). Her big break came when she was chosen from dozens of candidates to play the young high-wire performer adored by tragic circus performer Lon Chaney in MGM's Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928). Director Herbert Brenon was tough on Young during filming, but Chaney took a paternal interest in her and offered constant encouragement. Young would later say of Chaney, "I shall be beholden to that sensitive, sweet man until I die."

Now a contract player at Warner Bros., the busy young actress appeared in seven movies in 1929 alone. These included her first talking film, The Squall, with Myrna Loy and Carroll Nye; and The Show of Shows, in which Young not only spoke but sang, in a pleasant soprano, as half of a "sister act" with Sally Blane. Her singing ability was not to be showcased in future films, but Young's speaking voice proved clear and expressive, assuring her a future in "talkies."

The TCM star salute puts special emphasis on Young's years as a young leading lady of the early 1930s. As her star continued to climb, she remained constantly active, often to the point of physical exhaustion. Among her vehicles of the period were Loose Ankles (1930), as an heiress wooed by frequent costar Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; Road to Paradise (1930), as twin sisters, one good, one bad; Frank Capra's Platinum Blonde (1931), as the working-class rival of society dame Jean Harlow; The Ruling Voice (1931), opposite Walter Huston; and Taxi! (1932), as James Cagney's wife. Her ability to hold her own with some very colorful personalities was an indication of her growing skills as an actress.

Young made two films -- The Second Floor Mystery (1930) and Too Young to Marry (1931) -- with Grant Withers, another rising star with whom she eloped in 1930, only to become divorced a year later. She also appeared in William Wellman's The Hatchet Man (1932), in a strong role opposite Edward G. Robinson; two career-vs.-marriage stories, Week-End Marriage (1932) and Play-Girl (1932), both opposite Norman Foster, who later married her sister, Sally; and Employees' Entrance (1933), as a shopgirl tempted by her boss (Warren William). Loan-outs to other studios during 1933 resulted in box-office hits that enhanced Young's position in the industry. At MGM, she was cast against type as an accused murderess with a shady past in Midnight Mary, a "sleeper" success. At Fox, in her most prestigious star role to date, she played a waiflike orphan in Zoo in Budapest, which was expected to be a big moneymaker and became one. Man's Castle, a touching romantic drama made at Columbia, was a fateful film for Young because it introduced her to Spencer Tracy, with whom she shared a well-publicized romance as well as intense screen chemistry.

She Had to Say Yes (1933), Young's final film under her Warners contract, is an eyebrow-raising pre-Code drama about stenographers at a department store who are forced to work as call girls to keep their jobs, with Loretta projecting that combination of innocence and sexuality that made her screen image so potent. She then signed with Twentieth Century, a company formed by Darryl F. Zanuck after he left Warners. Her first film for her new studio, The House of Rothschild (1934) starring George Arliss, was another big hit.

Highlights of Young's tenure at Twentieth included Born to Be Bad (1934), in which she had such a shocking change of pace, playing a trampy unwed mother who's made to see the light by Cary Grant, that the film ran into censorship problems; and The Call of the Wild (1935), an adaptation of the Jack London classic starring Clark Gable. During location filming for the latter film, Young had an affair with Gable that resulted in a daughter who was born in secret and later adopted by Young. The daughter, actress Judy Lewis (1935-2011), discussed the situation at length in her 1994 memoir Uncommon Knowledge.

In 1935 Twentieth merged with Fox Film Corporation to create 20th Century Fox, and Young's contract was renegotiated on an exclusive basis, with the understanding that she would have her choice of leading roles at the studio. The first of these was Ramona (1936), an adaptation of the Helen Hunt Jackson novel with Young looking exquisite in Technicolor and a long dark wig.

She was lent to MGM for The Unguarded Hour (1936), a crime melodrama with Franchot Tone, then returned to her home studio for such hits as Suez (1938), in which she played Empress Eugenie and formed one of the movies' most beautiful couples with frequent costar Tyrone Power; and Kentucky (1938), a horseracing saga that brought supporting actor Walter Brennan one of his three Academy Awards.

After Wife, Husband and Friend (1939), a comedy with Warner Baxter in which she played a would-be opera singer (dubbed by Tamara Shavrova), Young left Fox to become a free-lance actress. Her films of this period included a handful at Columbia including The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940), a screwball comedy with Ray Milland; Bedtime Story (1941), another lighthearted romp, with Fredric March; and A Night to Remember (1942), a thriller with Brian Aherne. At Paramount she did two melodramas with popular new matinee idol Alan Ladd: China (1943) and And Now Tomorrow (1944).

Young's free-lance career kicked into high gear with Along Came Jones (1945), a gentle spoof of the Western genre in which she and Gary Cooper make a most appealing team; and The Stranger (1946), a riveting wartime drama in which Young is unwittingly married to a war criminal (Orson Welles). Her Oscar® for The Farmer's Daughter - won with stiff competition from Joan Crawford, Susan Hayward, Dorothy McGuire and close friend Rosalind Russell - capped this fruitful period of Young's career.

The 1950s began promisingly with two MGM vehicles: Key to the City (1950) an engaging comedy that reunited Young with Clark Gable; and Cause for Alarm! (1951), a modest but suspenseful thriller with Barry Sullivan. But, like other actresses of her generation, Young now found suitable movie vehicles difficult to find and was reduced to appearing in minor features. Her last theatrical film was It Happens Every Thursday (1953), a comedy from Universal in which she plays the supportive wife of a big-city newspaper man (John Forsythe) who moves his family to a small town. Young came back to prominence with a vengeance on television, starring in her hugely successful series The Loretta Young Show (originally Letter to Loretta), which ran on NBC from 1953 to 1961. It became the first and longest-running anthology drama series to feature a female star as host and actress. The format allowed Young to show her considerable range as an actress, and she won an unprecedented eight consecutive Emmy nominations as Best Actress, with three wins. Always something of clotheshorse, she was famous for her twirling entrances in the show, wearing the latest in high fashion.

She tried again for television success with The New Loretta Young Show, which ran on CBS for only one season, 1962-63. After 23 years of retirement, during which she worked for the Catholic charities that had always been an important part of her life, Young surprised everyone by appearing in two made-for-television movies, Christmas Eve (1986) and Lady in the Corner (1989). She won a Golden Globe award for the first and was again nominated for the second. She lent her voice as narrator to another television production, Life Along the Mississippi (1994).

Young was married to broadcast executive Tom Lewis from 1940 to 1969, when they divorced. In addition to her daughter, Judy, she had two sons with Lewis, Christopher and Peter. She was married to designer Jean Louis from 1993 until his death in 1997.

Young, who had appeared in more than 100 feature films in addition to her voluminous television work, died from ovarian cancer in 2000. An A&E television biography summed up the actress as "a symbol of beauty, serenity, and grace. But behind the glamour and stardom is a woman of substance whose true beauty lies in her dedication to her family, her faith, and her quest to live life with a purpose."

by Roger Fristoe