Gertrude Michael

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: Acting

Born: Talladega, Alabama, USA, 1911-06-01

Died: 1964-12-31

Film

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1932	Wayward	Mary Morton	60
2	1932	Unashamed	Marjorie	63
3	1933	Sailor Be Good	Kay Whitney	0
4	1933	A Bedtime Story	Louise	80
5	1933	Night of Terror	Sarah Rinehart	55
6	1933	Ann Vickers	Mona Dolphin	59
7	1933	I'm No Angel	Alicia Hatton	64
8	1933	Cradle Song	Marcella	0
9	1934	Search for Beauty	Jean Strange	59
10	1934	Bolero	Lady D'Argon	61
11	1934	George White's Scandals	Miss Lee	50
12	1934	Hold That Girl	Dorothy Lamont	0
13	1934	I Believed in You	Pamela Banks	0
14	1934	The Witching Hour	Margaret Price	53
15	1934	Murder at the Vanities	Rita Ross	54
16	1934	Murder on the Blackboard	Jane Davis	57
17	1934	The Notorious Sophie Lang	Sophie Lang	60
18	1934	Cleopatra	Calpurnia	60
19	1934	Menace	Helen Chalmers	65
20	1934	Father Brown, Detective	Evelyn Fischer	65
21	1935	It Happened in New York	Vania Nardi	0
22	1935	Four Hours to Kill!	Mrs. Sylvia Temple	50
23	1935	The Last Outpost	Rosemary Haydon	60
24	1936	Woman Trap	Barbara 'Buff' Andrews	0
25	1936	Till We Meet Again	Elsa Duranyi	50
26	1936	Forgotten Faces	Cleo / Harry's wife	0
27	1936	The Return of Sophie Lang	Sophie Lang	60
28	1936	Second Wife	Virginia Howard	0
29	1936	Make Way for a Lady	Miss Eleanor Emerson	50
30	1937	Mr. Dodd Takes the Air	Jessica Stafford	53
31	1937	Sophie Lang Goes West	Sophie Lang	60
32	1938	Star of the Circus	Yester	20
33	1939	Hidden Power	Virginia Garfield	0
34	1939	Just like a Woman	Ann Heston	0
35	1940	Pound Foolish	Mrs. Irene Reynolds	70
36	1940	Parole Fixer	Collette Menthe	0
37	1940	The Farmer's Daughter	Clarice Sheldon	50
38	1940	I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby	Magda Delys	60
39	1940	Slightly Tempted	Duchess	0
40	1942	Prisoner of Japan	Toni Chase	43
41	1943	Behind Prison Walls	Elinor Cantwell	0
42	1943	Where Are Your Children?	Nell Wilson	40
43	1943	Women in Bondage	District Director Schneider	57
44	1944	Faces in the Fog	Nora Brooks	30
45	1945	Three's a Crowd	Sophie Whipple	0
46	1945	Allotment Wives	Gladys Smith	60
47	1945	Club Havana	Hetty - Powder Room Attendant	57
48	1949	Flamingo Road	Millie	70
49	1950	Caged	Georgia Harrison	71
50	1951	Darling, How Could You!	Mrs. Rossiter	60
51	1952	Bugles in the Afternoon	May	50
52	1953	No Escape	Olga Valerie Lewis	45
53	1955	Women's Prison	Chief Matron Sturgess	57
54	1961	The Continental Twist	Letitia Clunker	47

Television

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1951	Schlitz Playhouse of Stars	The Duchess	70
2	1951	Schlitz Playhouse of Stars		70
3	1951	Hallmark Hall of Fame		87
4	1952	Four Star Playhouse	Fanny	61
5	1952	Cavalcade of America	Major Pauline Cushman	35
6	1955	The 20th Century Fox Hour		52
7	1957	Perry Mason	Helen Rucker	77
8	1958	Sea Hunt		65
9	1960	The Case of the Dangerous Robin	Kay Salisbury	0