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
Perry Mason
Helen Rucker
Four Star Playhouse
Fanny
The 20th Century Fox Hour
Flamingo Road
Millie
Sea Hunt
Slightly Tempted
Duchess
Ann Vickers
Mona Dolphin
Bolero
Lady D'Argon
Second Wife
Virginia Howard
Bugles in the Afternoon
May
Parole Fixer
Collette Menthe
Menace
Helen Chalmers
I Believed in You
Pamela Banks
Cavalcade of America
Major Pauline Cushman
Cleopatra
Calpurnia
Father Brown, Detective
Evelyn Fischer
The Case of the Dangerous Robin
Kay Salisbury
Night of Terror
Sarah Rinehart
Allotment Wives
Gladys Smith
The Continental Twist
Letitia Clunker
Sailor Be Good
Kay Whitney
Just like a Woman
Ann Heston
Hallmark Hall of Fame
No Escape
Olga Valerie Lewis
Where Are Your Children?
Nell Wilson
Wayward
Mary Morton
Unashamed
Marjorie
Sophie Lang Goes West
Sophie Lang
Caged
Georgia Harrison
Woman Trap
Barbara 'Buff' Andrews
Search for Beauty
Jean Strange
Club Havana
Hetty - Powder Room Attendant
I'm No Angel
Alicia Hatton
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
The Duchess
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
Magda Delys
Three's a Crowd
Sophie Whipple
Star of the Circus
Yester
The Witching Hour
Margaret Price
Murder on the Blackboard
Jane Davis
Hold That Girl
Dorothy Lamont
The Last Outpost
Rosemary Haydon
Women in Bondage
District Director Schneider
Prisoner of Japan
Toni Chase
Women's Prison
Chief Matron Sturgess
Faces in the Fog
Nora Brooks
Four Hours to Kill!
Mrs. Sylvia Temple
Till We Meet Again
Elsa Duranyi
Darling, How Could You!
Mrs. Rossiter
Murder at the Vanities
Rita Ross
George White's Scandals
Miss Lee
The Notorious Sophie Lang
Sophie Lang
Mr. Dodd Takes the Air
Jessica Stafford
The Return of Sophie Lang
Sophie Lang
The Farmer's Daughter
Clarice Sheldon
A Bedtime Story
Louise
Make Way for a Lady
Miss Eleanor Emerson
Cradle Song
Marcella
Forgotten Faces
Cleo / Harry's wife
It Happened in New York
Vania Nardi
Hidden Power
Virginia Garfield
Pound Foolish
Mrs. Irene Reynolds
Behind Prison Walls
Elinor Cantwell