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 |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 2.078 |
| Birthday | 1911-06-01 |
| Place of Birth | Talladega, Alabama, USA |
| Also Known As | Lillian Gertrude Michael, Beck Michael, |
1955
Women's Prison
5.7/18
A crusading psychiatrist battles a sadistic female warden to improve conditions at a women's prison.
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Women's Prison
1949
Flamingo Road
7/56
A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.
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Flamingo Road
1933
I'm No Angel
6.4/50
The bold Tira works as dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair. Out of an urgent need of money, she agrees to a risky new number: she'll put her head...
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I'm No Angel
1939
Hidden Power
0/0
Dr. Garfield gets so involved in his research for an antitoxin for severe burns that he completely neglects his wife, Virginian, and their young son,...
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Hidden Power
1950
Caged
7.111/72
A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.
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Caged
1936
Second Wife
0/0
Kenneth discovers that his son by his first wife is ill in a remote Swiss village, and is forced to leave Wife Number Two alone during childbirth.
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Second Wife
1945
Allotment Wives
6/5
Unscrupulous women marry servicemen for their pay.
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Allotment Wives
1933
Ann Vickers
5.9/9
After a love affair ending in an abortion, a young prison reformer submerges herself in her work. She then falls for a controversial and married judge...
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Ann Vickers
1934
Cleopatra
6/82
The queen of Egypt barges the Nile and flirts with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar.
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Cleopatra
1953
No Escape
4.5/12
When the available evidence in a murder case points to a young woman as the main suspect, her boyfriend, a police detective, arranges for a struggling...
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No Escape
1961
The Continental Twist
4.7/3
Sam Butera and the Witnesses perform several Twist numbers to save a small New Orleans nightclub and raise the bail to get Louis Prima out of jail.
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The Continental Twist
1934
Murder at the Vanities
5.4/10
Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading la...
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Murder at the Vanities
1935
The Last Outpost
6/6
During WW1, the destinies of British officers Michael Andrews and John Stevenson seem intertwined on the battle front as much as on a more personal le...
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The Last Outpost
1952
Bugles in the Afternoon
5/9
Old enemies stationed together at an Army post vie for the same woman.
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Bugles in the Afternoon
1935
Four Hours to Kill!
5/5
A detective who has "four hours to kill" before delivering his prisoner, an escaped killer, spends the time in the lobby of a Broadway theater where a...
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Four Hours to Kill!
1945
Three's a Crowd
0/0
What would you do in this house of fear... if you knew that your husband killed your former flame?
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Three's a Crowd
1936
Make Way for a Lady
5/5
An imaginative teenager decides to play matchmaker for her widowed father. Director David Burton's 1936 comedy stars Herbert Marshall, Anne Shirley, G...
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Make Way for a Lady
1937
Sophie Lang Goes West
6/1
Reformed jewel-thief Sophie Lang, tired of being questioned by the New York City police every time a jewel disappears, decides to head for California...
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Sophie Lang Goes West
1933
Night of Terror
5.5/20
The heirs to a family fortune are required to attend a seance at the spooky old family mansion. However, throughout the night members of the family ar...
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Night of Terror
1943
Women in Bondage
5.7/3
Women in Bondage is a 1943 World War II film about conditions for women under Hitler's regime. The plot involves two women imprisoned for speaking out...
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Women in Bondage
1934
Murder on the Blackboard
5.7/6
There are plenty of guilty secrets at the school where Hildegarde Withers teaches. When she finds the body of the pretty music teacher, she calls in h...
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Murder on the Blackboard
1933
Cradle Song
0/0
In a deeply cloistered convent, nun Dorothea Wieck (Mädchen in Uniform) raises a foundling to be Evelyn Venable. But at 17, what if, guided by a kindl...
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Cradle Song
1934
Bolero
6.1/9
The complicated relationship between an ambitious, ruthless nightclub dancer and the woman he loves.
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Bolero
1943
Where Are Your Children?
4/1
Judy Wilson (Gale Storm), feeling neglected because both of her parents are working in defense plants, meets and falls in love with Danny Chester (Jac...
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Where Are Your Children?
1937
Mr. Dodd Takes the Air
5.333/6
A country bumpkin becomes a singing sensation on the radio.
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Mr. Dodd Takes the Air
1936
Till We Meet Again
5/3
In London, August 1914, Austrian star Elsa Duranyi (Gertrude Michael) and English matinee idol Alan Barclay (Herbert Marshall) are in love and plan an...
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Till We Meet Again
1934
The Witching Hour
5.3/3
Jack Brookfield, a gambler with clairvoyant and hypnotic powers, is able to win at cards through his unique gift. But when he inadvertently hypnotizes...
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The Witching Hour
1936
The Return of Sophie Lang
6/1
In order to give up her life of crime and go straight, renowned jewel thief Sophie Lang fakes her own death and retires to London. She soon finds a jo...
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The Return of Sophie Lang
1932
Unashamed
6.3/3
A debutante's (Helen Twelvetrees) brother (Robert Young) stands trial for killing her no-good lover.
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Unashamed
1934
Father Brown, Detective
6.5/3
After notorious jewel thief Flambeau meets Evelyn Fischer during a raid on a casino, he falls deeply in love with her. Later Flambeau sends notes to b...
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Father Brown, Detective
1934
Search for Beauty
5.9/9
Three con artists dupe two Olympians into serving as editors of a new health and beauty magazine which is only a front for salacious stories and pictu...
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Search for Beauty
1933
A Bedtime Story
8/1
Parisian playboy plays father to an abandoned baby who interferes with his womanising.
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A Bedtime Story
1935
It Happened in New York
0/0
A New York City cab driver in need of $200 picks up a movie star in his cab, and schemes to get the money from her.
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It Happened in New York
1940
Slightly Tempted
0/0
A con man tries to sell phony stocks to unwary investors.
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Slightly Tempted
1934
Menace
6.5/2
A psychotic man stalks three innocent people whom he believes are responsible for his brother's death.
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Menace
1934
George White's Scandals
5/7
Reporter Miss Lee is looking for a story and approaches George White as he's assembling the latest edition of his famous revue. As it turns out, she h...
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George White's Scandals
1940
Parole Fixer
0/0
This expose of the U.S. parole system, as seen through the eyes of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, takes dead aim on lawyers who manipulate the justice...
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Parole Fixer
1942
Prisoner of Japan
4.3/3
An American astronomer living on a Pacific island attempts to thwart the Japanese during WWII.
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Prisoner of Japan
1940
The Farmer's Daughter
5/3
Broadway producer Nickie North and press agent Scoop Trimble find an investor for their next show who insists that they cast his ex-girlfriend, Claric...
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The Farmer's Daughter
1944
Faces in the Fog
3/1
Tom and Cora Elliott love their active social life so much that they neglect their daughter Mary and son Les. Fred Mason, Tom's neighbor and the docto...
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Faces in the Fog
1940
I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
6/1
In I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby, Broderick Crawford plays a sentimental gangster who abducts songwriter Johnny Downs and forces him to wri...
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I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
1936
Woman Trap
0/0
A gangland murder is the motivating factor of this fast-moving crime drama. George Murphy stars as reporter Kent Shevlin, whose investigation of the m...
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Woman Trap
1934
Hold That Girl
0/0
"That girl" is newspaper sob-sister Tony Bellamy (Claire Trevor), whose nose for news gets her into one jam after another, especially when she poses a...
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Hold That Girl
1943
Behind Prison Walls
0/0
A reworking of a familiar theme, the story finds scheming steel tycoon James J. MacGlennon (Tully Marshall) and his high-minded lawyer son Jonathan (A...
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Behind Prison Walls
1939
Just like a Woman
0/0
A group of private detectives working for a jeweler pursue a gang of thieves in Argentina.
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Just like a Woman
1951
Darling, How Could You!
6/3
Two absentee American parents get to know their three children again after spending five years in Panama.
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Darling, How Could You!
1932
Wayward
6/1
Story of a mother's antagonism to her son's wife. Based on the novel "Wild Beauty" by Mateel Howe Farnham.
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Wayward
1940
Pound Foolish
7/1
An expose of attempts by wealthy people to avoid payment of customs duties. Part of the MGM "Crime Does Not Pay" series.
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Pound Foolish
1934
The Notorious Sophie Lang
6/4
After an extended stay in England, Sophie Lang returns to America. She is beautiful, sophisticated--and a notorious jewel thief. A New York police det...
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The Notorious Sophie Lang
1934
I Believed in You
0/0
An aspiring writer and her boyfriend, a professional agitator head off to the Big Apple in search of good fortune. Unfortunately, the agitator soon fi...
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I Believed in You
1933
Sailor Be Good
0/0
A Navy boxer (Jack Oakie) meets a dance-hall hostess (Vivienne Osborne) who tries to sober him up for a fight.
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Sailor Be Good
1945
Club Havana
5.7/6
A number of different characters unfolding love, hate, and death problems during an evening in a fashionable Latin nightclub.
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Club Havana
1938
Star of the Circus
2/1
English-language version or remake of the German film, TRUXA (1937).
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Star of the Circus
1936
Forgotten Faces
0/0
Harry Ashton is a superstitious gambling house owner, who relies on sprigs of heliotrope as his good luck charm. One day, Harry catches his wife, Cleo...
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