Gertrude Michael

Acting

Gertrude Michael

Born 1911-06-01 · Talladega, Alabama, USA

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.

Acting credits

Cleopatra poster
6.1

The queen of Egypt barges the Nile and flirts with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar.

Cleopatra

1934

Allotment Wives poster
6.7

Unscrupulous women marry servicemen for their pay.

Allotment Wives

1945

Caged poster
7.1

A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.

Caged

1950

I'm No Angel poster
6.3

Bold performer Tira works as dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair. Out of an urgent financial need, she agrees to a risky new number: she'll put her head into the lion's mouth! With this attraction, the circus makes it to New York and Tira can pursue her dearest occupation — flirting with rich men and accepting expensive presents.

I'm No Angel

1933

Wayward poster
6.3

Story of a mother's antagonism to her son's wife. Based on the novel "Wild Beauty" by Mateel Howe Farnham.

Wayward

1932

Flamingo Road poster
7.0

A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.

Flamingo Road

1949

Woman Trap poster
8.0

A gangland murder is the motivating factor of this fast-moving crime drama. George Murphy stars as reporter Kent Shevlin, whose investigation of the murder leads to a tenure as a temporary FBI agent.

Woman Trap

1936

Bugles in the Afternoon poster
5.4

Old enemies stationed together at an Army post vie for the same woman.

Bugles in the Afternoon

1952

The Last Outpost poster
6.2

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 level.

The Last Outpost

1935

Bolero poster
6.4

The complicated relationship between an ambitious, ruthless nightclub dancer and the woman he loves.

Bolero

1934

Women's Prison poster
5.8

A crusading psychiatrist battles a sadistic female warden to improve conditions at a women's prison.

Women's Prison

1955

Murder at the Vanities poster
5.6

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 lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.

Murder at the Vanities

1934

Women in Bondage poster
6.8

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 against the government. It was directed by Steve Sekely and starred Gail Patrick and Nancy Kelly.

Women in Bondage

1943

The Notorious Sophie Lang poster
6.7

After an extended stay in England, Sophie Lang returns to America. She is beautiful, sophisticated--and a notorious jewel thief. A New York police detective who's been trying to nail her finally comes up with what seems a foolproof scheme--to catch her off guard by having her fall for a handsome and suave jewel thief who happens to be in the U.S. traveling under an assumed name.

The Notorious Sophie Lang

1934

Sophie Lang Goes West poster
8.0

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 only to get into more trouble.

Sophie Lang Goes West

1937

Four Hours to Kill! poster
5.7

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 musical is playing. The film focuses on the relationship between the two men, and also between various characters in the theater audience, staff and cast.

Four Hours to Kill!

1935

Club Havana poster
5.9

A number of different characters unfolding love, hate, and death problems during an evening in a fashionable Latin nightclub.

Club Havana

1945

Faces in the Fog poster
4.3

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 doctor at the defense plant employing Tom, worries about the effect that Tom and Cora's drinking and socializing have on the children....

Faces in the Fog

1944

I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby poster
7.0

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 write a love ballad. It is Crawford's hope that the song will reach out and touch his long-lost childhood sweetheart. I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby was based on James Edward Grant's short story Trouble in B Flat; echoes of the basic premise later resurfaced in the 1957 "A" picture The Girl Can't Help It.

I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby

1940

Ann Vickers poster
5.8

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 and scandal looms again.

Ann Vickers

1933

Darling, How Could You! poster
7.2

Two absentee American parents get to know their three children again after spending five years in Panama.

Darling, How Could You!

1951

The Farmer's Daughter poster
5.3

Broadway producer Nicksie North and press agent Scoop Trimble find an investor for their next show who insists that they cast his ex-girlfriend, Clarice Sheldon, in the lead role and rehearse out of town. The crew set up on a family farm, and all is well until the leading man falls for the farmer's daughter, Patience Bingham.

The Farmer's Daughter

1940

Prisoner of Japan poster
5.0

An American astronomer living on a Pacific island attempts to thwart the Japanese during WWII.

Prisoner of Japan

1942

Make Way for a Lady poster
5.5

An imaginative teenager decides to play matchmaker for her widowed father. Director David Burton's 1936 comedy stars Herbert Marshall, Anne Shirley, Gertrude Michael, Margot Grahame, Clara Blandick, Frank Coghlan Jr., Willie Best and Maxine Jennings.

Make Way for a Lady

1936