Loretta Young

The actress and star Loretta Young was possibly the biggest hypocrite of Hollywood’s golden age.  A self consciously devout Catholic, her piety was such that she found it difficult to even say the word ‘divorce’ on screen.  Yet, as is often the way, her private behaviour hardly squared with her public morals.  Twice divorced herself, Young was something of a ‘goer’ in her youth, eloping at 17 with a man 9 years her senior and, infamously, having a ‘love child’ with married fellow star Clark Gable after the two got it on whilst on location for the aptly titled “Call of the Wild” (1935).

Because of the morals clause in both Young’s and Gable’s contracts they could not openly acknowledge their daughter.  Young hid the pregnancy, placing off-spring Judy Lewis in an orphanage for two years before she felt confident enough to adopt her own child.  It didn’t help matters that Lewis was the spitting image of Gable, with his trade mark stick-out ears.  Surgery was the only option for them, something Young subjected Lewis to at age seven.   She did not, however, tell the girl about her parentage until two decades later, vomiting when confronted with the truth.  With due melodrama Young subsequently labelled herself “a walking mortal sin”.

Auteur House stocks three of Young’s films, including the movie that she is most likely to be remembered for: “The Stranger” (1946), the only commercial hit of Orson Welles’ directorial career.  Young plays a perfect wife, albeit one who has inadvertently married a Nazi war criminal.  Her dress sense is impeccable, anticipating her small screen success as a stylish clothes horse in the 1950s.

The real Loretta Young - the one she worked so hard to repress - is on show in “Born to Be Bad” (1934).  Cast as a good time girl who has a child out of wedlock at 15, Young is devastating.  Cavorting around half naked, seducing nice guy Cary Grant under the very nose of his character’s wife, it is hard to think of a sexier 1930s performance.  Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, even Marlene Dietrich cannot compare.

Dietrich herself said knowingly of Young that “every time she ’sins,’ she builds a church. That’s why there are so many Catholic churches in Hollywood”.  On the evidence of “Born to Be Bad” we can be sure that Gable had a fine old time of it in the woods.