Gertrude Michael
Biography
Gertrude Michael (June 1, 1911, Talladega, Alabama – December 31, 1964, Beverly Hills, California) was an American film, stage and television actress. Born as Lillian Gertrude Michael in Talladega, Alabama, she reportedly graduated from high school at the age of 14. She became a radio singer on the radio. She attended the University of Alabama and Converse College, Cincinnati. Her childhood home in Talladega, Alabama was destroyed by fire in 2007. In 1929 in Cincinnati she made her stage debut in a stock company. She subsequently appeared on Broadway in Rachel Crothers' Caught Wet (1931). She entered the movies playing Richard Arlen's finaceé in Wayward (1932), but her best-remembered role is probably as Rita Ross in Murder at the Vanities (1934), one of the last pre-Code films, in which she sang an ode to marijuana (Sweet Marijuana). She had an affair with writer Paul Cain (aka Peter Ruric).After they broke up, Cain wrote the role of the alcoholic lover (based on Michael) in his only novel published during his lifetime, Fast One. Gertrude Michael died, aged 53, from undisclosed causes, in Beverly Hills, California. Description above from the Wikipedia article Gertrude Michael,licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
Chief Matron Sturgess
Women's Prison
Millie
Flamingo Road
Alicia Hatton
I'm No Angel
Virginia Garfield
Hidden Power
Georgia Harrison
Caged
Virginia Howard
Second Wife
Gladys Smith
Allotment Wives
Mona Dolphin
Ann Vickers
Calpurnia
Cleopatra
Olga Valerie Lewis
No Escape
Letitia Clunker
The Continental Twist
Rita Ross
Murder at the Vanities
Rosemary Haydon
The Last Outpost
May
Bugles in the Afternoon
Mrs. Sylvia Temple
Four Hours to Kill!
Sophie Whipple
Three's a Crowd
Miss Eleanor Emerson
Make Way for a Lady
Sophie Lang
Sophie Lang Goes West
Sarah Rinehart
Night of Terror
District Director Schneider
Women in Bondage
Jane Davis
Murder on the Blackboard
Marcella
Cradle Song
Lady D'Argon
Bolero
Nell Wilson
Where Are Your Children?
Jessica Stafford
Mr. Dodd Takes the Air
Elsa Duranyi
Till We Meet Again
Margaret Price
The Witching Hour
Sophie Lang
The Return of Sophie Lang
Marjorie
Unashamed
Evelyn Fischer
Father Brown, Detective
Jean Strange
Search for Beauty
Louise
A Bedtime Story
Vania Nardi
It Happened in New York
Duchess
Slightly Tempted
Helen Chalmers
Menace
Miss Lee
George White's Scandals
Collette Menthe
Parole Fixer
Toni Chase
Prisoner of Japan
Clarice Sheldon
The Farmer's Daughter
Nora Brooks
Faces in the Fog
Magda Delys
I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
Barbara 'Buff' Andrews
Woman Trap
Dorothy Lamont
Hold That Girl
Elinor Cantwell
Behind Prison Walls
Ann Heston
Just like a Woman
Mrs. Rossiter
Darling, How Could You!
Mary Morton
Wayward
Mrs. Irene Reynolds
Pound Foolish
Sophie Lang
The Notorious Sophie Lang
Pamela Banks
I Believed in You
Kay Whitney
Sailor Be Good
Hetty - Powder Room Attendant
Club Havana
Yester
Star of the Circus
Cleo / Harry's wife
Forgotten Faces
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
54
Gender
Female
Birthday
1911-06-01
Place of Birth
Talladega, Alabama, USA
Also Known As
Lillian Gertrude Michael