Miriam Hopkins (1902-1972), a versatile actress who could play both floozies and grand ladies, was also known for her fiery temperament.

An established Broadway actress when she was signed for films by Paramount in 1930, Hopkins quickly became a top movie star thanks to her appearances in two films by sophisticated-comedy master Ernst Lubitsch. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) is a period musical in which Claudette Colbert famously advises Hopkins to "Jazz Up Your Lingerie"; Trouble in Paradise (1932), is a delightful comedy in which Hopkins and Herbert Marshall play jewel thieves with Kay Francis as their prey.

Hopkins' other film mentor, Rouben Mamoulian, directed her as Becky Sharp (1935) in a version of Thackeray's Vanity Fair that became the first movie to be made in three-strip Technicolor. Hopkins' other career high points include These Three (1936), a film version of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour; The Old Maid (1939) and Old Acquaintance (1943), two classy soap operas costarring Hopkins' rival Bette Davis; and Lady With Red Hair (1940), in which Hopkins played the noted actress Mrs. Leslie Carter.

Later in her career Hopkins returned to Broadway, then turned to summer stock and character roles in such films as The Children's Hour (1961), now playing an older character; and The Chase (1966). She was especially good in her first major supporting role in films, that of the solicitous, romantic aunt in a fine reunion film with Wyler, The Heiress (1949). he also did occasional TV work, perhaps most memorably in an outlandish yet highly effective and even moving Norma Desmond-type turn as an overage flapper still living in her youthful past in "Don't Open Till Doomsday", an especially memorable installment of the cult classic anthology series, "The Outer Limits." Hopkins had four husbands; her third was director Anatole Litvak. She died September 10, 1972.

by Roger Fristoe