Miriam Hopkins

Born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1902, Ellen Miriam Hopkins was raised in nearby Bainbridge and attended a finishing school in Vermont and Syracuse University. Studying dance in New York, she began her show business career as a chorus girl in 1922 and successfully moved onto legitimate theater. In 1930, after feeling the call to the silver screen, she signed with Paramount Studios, and made her official film debut in Fast and Loose that same year.

Her first great success was in Ernst Lubitsch's masterpiece Trouble in Paradise (1932), in which she charmingly plays Lily, a thief posing as a countess. During the rest of the 1930s she appeared in such films as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), where I first saw her and was captured by her allure, Becky Sharp (1935), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, Barbary Coast (1935), These Three (1936) and The Old Maid, opposite Betty Davis (1939). BTW it was on TCM earlier today, so look for it on their schedule. She was known as being very difficult on the set and most bios point to this consistently.

She was married and divorced four times. In 1932, at a time when single-parent adoption was illegal in most states, she adopted a baby boy while between marriages. She adored her son, Michael, and always called him the most important man in her life.

She died in New York city in 1972.




This image (double click for larger image) comes from my September 1931 copy of New Movie Magazine. It oozes allure as far as I'm concerned.

Miriam Hopkins - What do you think? Allure?