Myrna Loy was an American film, television and stage actress.
Background
Ethnicity:
Loy's paternal grandparents were Welsh, and her maternal grandparents were Scottish and Swedish.
Loy was born on August 2, 1905, in Helena, Montana, the daughter of Adelle Mae (née Johnson) and rancher David Franklin Williams, and raised in Radersburg. She had a younger brother, David Williams (died 1982). Her first name was derived from a whistle stop near Broken Bow, Nebraska, whose name her father liked. Her father was also a banker and real estate developer and the youngest man ever elected to the Montana state legislature. Her mother studied music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.
During the winter of 1912, Loy's mother nearly died from pneumonia, and her father sent his wife and daughter to La Jolla, California. Loy's mother saw great potential in Southern California, and during one of her husband's visits, she encouraged him to purchase real estate there. Among the properties he bought was land he later sold at a considerable profit to Charlie Chaplin so the filmmaker could construct his studio there. Although her mother tried to persuade her husband to move to California permanently, he preferred ranch life and the three eventually returned to Montana. Soon afterward, Loy's mother needed a hysterectomy and insisted Los Angeles was a safer place to have it done, so she, Loy, and Loy's brother David moved to Ocean Park.
After the November 1918 death of Loy's father from the 1918 flu pandemic, Loy's mother permanently relocated the family to California, where they settled in Culver City.
Education
Loy began to take dancing lessons. After the family returned to Montana, Loy continued her dancing lessons, and at the age of 12, Myrna Williams made her stage debut performing a dance she had choreographed based on "The Blue Bird" from the Rose Dream operetta at Helena's Marlow Theater.
Loy attended the exclusive Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles while continuing to study dance in downtown L.A.. When her teachers objected to her extracurricular participation in theatrical arts, her mother enrolled her in Venice High School, and at 15, she began appearing in local stage productions.
In 1921, Loy posed for Venice High School sculpture teacher Harry Fielding Winebrenner for the central figure "Inspiration" in his allegorical sculpture group Fountain of Education. Completed in 1922, the sculpture group was installed in front of the campus outdoor pool in May 1923 where it stood for decades.
Loy left school at the age of 18 to help with the family's finances.
A former dancer, Loy began in films as a bit player from the mid-20s and was primarily cast as mysterious, exotic types for the first decade of her career. Loy entertainingly wrecked many a home and stole many a leading man (however temporarily) from the arms of his wife or fiance in films including "The Squall" (1929) and "Consolation Marriage" (1931). She occasionally snagged a more realistic or sympathetic part, as in "Cock of the Walk" (1930) or "Arrowsmith" (1931), but Loy's dominant image was summed up in films like "13 Women" (1932), in which her vengeful half-caste murders the sorority sisters who snubbed her long ago, and "The Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932), as the title villain's daughter, gleefully whipping his white captives.
In retrospect, 1932 began the real turnaround in Loy's career, her delightful flair for comedy first highlighted with her supporting performance as the man-hungry Vantine in Rouben Mamoulian's musical masterpiece "Love Me Tonight" (1932). She also provided sophisticated competition for nominal star Ann Harding in "The Animal Kingdom" (1932) and "When Ladies Meet" (1933) and brought her trademark subdued sexiness to an early important lead opposite John Barrymore in the whimsical "Topaze" (1933).
Stardom awaited her, and, in 1934, W.S. Van Dyke cast Loy opposite ideal co-star William Powell in the first of the hugely successful "Thin Man" comedy-mysteries, confirming her as a favorite with movie audiences around the country. Her Nora Charles came from money but was eager for thrills, and so she pushed husband and former detective Nick into one comic adventure after another as he solved seemingly impenetrable whodunits. Loy's best non-"Thin Man" films opposite Powell (with whom she made 14 joint appearances in all) include the drama "Evelyn Prentice" (1934) and the screwball farces "Libeled Lady" (1936), "I Love You Again" (1940) and "Love Crazy" (1941). Her best efforts with Clark Gable, meanwhile, include "Wife vs. Secretary" (1936) and Loy's own personal favorite among her starring vehicles, "Test Pilot" (1938). Her popularity peaked in the late 30s, and when Gable was voted "King of Hollywood" in a popularity poll, Myrna Loy was right beside him as elected "Queen."
Loy continued a career distinguished by her fine performance opposite Fredric March in William Wyler's Oscar-winning study of postwar readjustment, "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946). She also extended her perfect wife image opposite Cary Grant in the delightful "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" (1948) and the enjoyable "Cheaper by the Dozen" (1950) opposite Clifton Webb. Loy continued in occasional character roles with star billing from the mid-1950s until the 80s ("Lonelyhearts" 1958, "The April Fools" 1969, "The End" 1977), and ventured successfully into stage work as well. Her final film work was a lovely supporting performance as Alan King's long-suffering secretary in Sidney Lumet's comedy, "Just Tell Me What You Want" (1980). She also performed beautifully opposite Henry Fonda on the TV drama "Summer Solstice" (1981).
Loy died on December 14, 1993, at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan during unspecified surgery after a long illness. She was 88 years old. She was cremated in New York and her ashes interred at Forestvale Cemetery in her native Helena, Montana.
Loy stated in a 1970 interview that she was a Methodist.
Politics
Increasingly active in politics after her WWII service with the Red Cross (she was a founding member of the Committee for the First Amendment). She became very active in promoting liberal causes, was a thorn in Richard Nixon's side for decades before it became popular, and was the first film star to work for the United Nations
Even before Loy became an active Democrat, one of her biggest fans was Franklin D. Roosevelt; she was his favorite actress. She became a personal friend of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Views
Quotations:
"Life, is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming."
"They say the movies should be more like life; I think life should be more like the movies."
"I admire some of the people on the screen today, but most of them look like everybody else. In our day we had individuality. Pictures were more sophisticated. All this nudity is too excessive and it is getting very boring. It will be a shame if it upsets people so much that it brings on the need for censorship. I hate censorship. In the cinema there's no mystery. No privacy. And no sex, either. Most of the sex I've seen on the screen looks like an expression of hostility towards sex."
"Why does every black person in the movies have to play a servant? How about a black person walking up the steps of a courthouse carrying a briefcase?"
"Some perfect wife I am. I've been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can't boil an egg."
"Life is not about having and getting. It's about being and becoming."
"If you're bored in New York, it's your own fault."
"I had these slinky eyes and a sense of humor."
"I think that carrying on a life that is meant to be private in public is a breach of taste, common sense, and mental hygiene."
"I never enjoyed my work more than when I worked with William Powell. He was a brilliant actor, a delightful companion, a great friend and above all, a true gentleman."
"I was a homely kid with freckles that came out every spring and stuck on me till Christmas."
"I was glamorous because of magicians like George Folsey, James Wong Howe, Oliver Marsh, Ray June, and all those other great cinematographers. I trusted those men and the other experts who made us beautiful. The rest of it I didn't give a damn about. I didn't fuss about my clothes, my lighting, or anything else, but, believe me, some of them did."
Personality
In Myrna's restrained, or withheld, smartness and her consistent underplaying, for years Myrna Loy seemed very modern and alluringly cool. She was only really stirred if she liked the idea of a screen partnership. The attitude is allied to her own modesty and the feeling that stardom just happened to her.
Physical Characteristics:
Myrna had been frail and in failing health.
Interests
Politicians
Richard Nixon
Connections
Loy was married and divorced four times. Loy had no children of her own, but was close to her stepchildren by first husband Arthur Hornblow.