Gloria Stuart in 1935
Many people know Gloria Stuart as the adorable old lady who plays Rose as an old woman in the 1997 waste of time “Titanic.”
However, when I think of Gloria Stuart, I think of her in my favorite Shirley Temple movie, “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” (1938). Stuart played the country girl that befriends Shirley Temple and helps get her to a radio gig at the end of the movie. She also plays the love interest to attractive Randolph Scott.
Gloria Stuart was one of the many beautiful Warner Brothers glamour girls of the 1930s, however she did not have as a big of a career as other actresses such as Joan Blondell, Gail Patrick or Ginger Rogers.
She did manage to appear and be serenaded by Dick Powell in “Gold Diggers of 1935” (1935), one of the few “Gold Diggers” movies that didn’t star Joan Blondell.
I have to be honest, “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms,” “Poor Little Rich Girl“(1936) and “Gold Diggers of 1935” are the only Stuart films I have seen. Most of her films were low budget 1930s and 1940s films. She had 69 film credits to her name, which sounds like a lot by todays standards, but wasn’t much for a 1930s and 1940s actress. Actresses like Kay Francis and Bette Davis made up to 100 films, filming two to four in just one year.
But though Stuart’s film career might not be as impressive as some, she accomplished one thing that many stars do not: She was married to her filmographer husband Arthur Sheekman from 1934 until his death in 1978, a long marriage by Hollywood standards that few are able to boast.
Stuart was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Role in “Titanic.” I think it is really a shame that she didn’t win, seeing that the film won every other Oscar, tying for most winnings with “Ben-Hur” (which in my opinion, how can you compare a stupid romance movie with the religious and moving Ben-Hur. I like the 1950s version of Titanic MUCH better).
Anyhow, let us not remember Miss Stuart for tossing a blue sapphire necklace into the ocean at the end of a movie, but for her lovely 1930s glamour as Dick Powell serenades her with “The Words are in My Heart.”
Gloria Stuart knitting
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How can you compare the two Titanic movies if you refuse to see and have never watched the 1997 version? I think the newer version will be considered a classic in the future, its already considered one already.
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Well the 1950s version of “Titanic” with Barbara Stanwyck has a lot of factual characters from what I could tell in the Titanic museum on the Queen Mary in California. The historically accurate one is “A Night to Remember” which was about the shipmates rather than the passengers, probably the saddest too because you see how the boat was trying to get in contact with another boat-but couldn’t because their radio man was asleep.
I’ve never said I refused to watch it, just seen enough bits and pieces when it was on TV to get the gist lol.
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Thanks for posting this Jessica, I didn’t realize that she had passed away. The only thing I have ever seen her in was the 1997 version of Titanic. I know that Heaven is having a great reunion of old hollywood greats this week.
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