Loretta Young Bio - Biography

Name Loretta Young
Height 5' 6"
Naionality American
Date of Birth 6 January 1913,
Place of Birth Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Famous for
Sweet, sweeter, sweetest. No combination of terms better describes the screen persona of lovely Loretta Young.

When Gretchen Young was three years old her mother moved with her and her sisters to Hollywood, where she established a boarding house. Gretchen was appearing on screen as a child extra by the time she was four, joining her elder sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (later better known as Sally Blane), as child players. Gretchen later absented herself from the screen to attend convent school, but returned at age 14 with a bit appearance in the Colleen Moore vehicle Naughty But Nice (1927). Gretchen Young became known as Loretta Young and let her blond hair revert to its natural brown. With her blue eyes, satin complexion and exquisite face, she succeeded in short order and graduated from bit player to ingénue, then to leading lady. However, she made headlines in 1930 when Grant Withers, who was previously married and nine years her senior, eloped to Yuma, Arizona, with the 17-year-old Loretta (they had both appeared in Warner Bros.' The Second Floor Mystery (1930)). The marriage was annulled in 1931, the same year in which the pair would again co-star on screen, in a film called, ironically enough, Too Young to Marry (1931). Loretta has always shown an elegant sort of beauty in her films, many of which were rather pedestrian fare. Yet she could act if called upon, as witness her performance in The Farmer's Daughter (1947) or in Come to the Stable (1949). She retired from films in 1953 and began a second, equally successful career as hostess of "Letter to Loretta" (1953), a half-hour drama anthology series which ran on NBC from September 1953 to September 1961, and which in its first season was called "A Letter to Loretta". In addition to hosting the series, she frequently starred in episodes. Although she is most remembered for her stunning gowns and swirling entrances, over the broadcast's eight-year run she also showed again that she could act. She won Emmy awards (for Best Actress in a Dramatic Series) in 1954, 1956 and 1958.

Loretta Young Photos