She was born on January 3, 1898 in Parsons, Kansas, United States. She was named after her mother's sisters, Eliza and Susan, ZaSu being the last syllable of one name and the first of the other. When ZaSu was an infant the Pitts family moved to Santa Cruz, California.
She attended the public schools of Santa Cruz, California.
Encouraged by family friends who were impressed by her uncommon talent for mimicry, Pitts hoped to find a job in motion pictures. Her chance came unexpectedly in 1917, when Mary Pickford traveled to northern California to film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Hired as an extra for the circus sequence, Pitts followed the company to Hollywood.
Screenwriter Frances Marion later recalled the young actress's first appearance at Paramount studios, looking for work: "She was about fifteen and looked like a trapped little animal. Her eyes were enormous in a small pinched face and her hands waved as if she were trying to catch invisible butterflies on the wing. I watched this pathetic wisp of a girl with astonishment and compassion. " On the basis of Marion's recommendation, Mary Pickford selected Pitts to appear opposite her in The Little Princess (1917). The unique personal traits that had caught the attention of Marion and Pickford were hallmarks of ZaSu Pitts's screen image for nearly half a century.
Pitts began her career as an ingenue but quickly established herself as a comedienne. During the 1920's, however, she played a full range of roles. She reached the pinnacle of her art under the direction of Erich von Stroheim in two classics, Greed (1924) and The Wedding March (1928). For ZaSu Pitts the 1920's were the most creative years and an important period in her private life.
Pitts balanced her many comedies with occasional serious roles, but the birth of the talkies irrevocably tilted her career toward comedy. She had a string of comedy hits in 1929 and 1930. But when she returned to serious drama as Lew Ayres's bereaved mother in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) her mere appearance evoked laughter from preview audiences. Director Lewis Milestone had to reshoot her scenes using another actress, Beryl Mercer. Pitts subsequently confined herself to comic roles, although her work in Ernst Lubitsch's The Man I Killed (1932) was a noteworthy exception.
She starred with Thelma Todd in sixteen comedy shorts between 1931 and 1933. In features she often teamed with comic actors Slim Summerville, Lucien Littlefield, and James Gleason. Always in demand, but increasingly the victim of studio typecasting, Pitts played a succession of nervous telephone operators, doleful maids, talkative tourists, dim-witted nurses, and confused receptionists, usually in low-budget films.
From 1954 to 1963 Pitts appeared frequently on television. She played familiar comedy types on dramatic anthology programs, including "General Electric Theatre", "Kraft Television Theatre" and "Screen Director's Playhouse. " She also appeared in two Broadway shows, Ramshackle Inn (1944) and The Bat (1953), both undistinguished and short-lived comedy-mysteries.
ZaSu Pitts died in Los Angeles.
ZaSu Pitts starred in the epic silent films Greed and The Wedding March. Pitts' activities on radio included playing famous Miss Mamie Wayne on the soap opera Big Sister. Besides, she was best known to television audiences, though, as a regular on "The Gale Storm Show: Oh Susanna", a popular situation comedy. ZaSu Pitts was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960 for her contribution to motion pictures. In 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp.
She was a Republican, and became active in the party.
She used her fragile appearance, fluttering hands, wide-eyed countenance, and wistful demeanor to good effect in comedy, melodrama, and tragedy
Quotes from others about the person
Film historian Herman Weinberg has called her work in Greed (1924) and The Wedding March (1928) "two of the most beautiful performances ever given by an actress in the annals of the screen. "
As von Stroheim observed, "One looks at ZaSu Pitts and sees pathos, even tragedy, and a wistfulness that craves for something she has never had or hopes to have. Yet she is one of the happiest and most contented women I have ever known. "
On July 23, 1920, she married Los Angeles sportsman and boxing promoter Thomas Gallery. They had one child. They separated in 1926 and were divorced in 1932. On October 8, 1933, she secretly married John E. Woodall, a real estate broker. They had no children.
