Jean Arthur

Acting

Jean Arthur

Born 1900-10-17 · Plattsburgh, New York, USA

Jean Arthur (born Gladys Georgianna Greene; October 17, 1900 – June 19, 1991) was an American actress celebrated as one of the defining screen personalities of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Known for her quick wit, expressive voice, and understated charm, she became one of the era’s most beloved comedic leading ladies, especially in the screwball comedy genre. Film historian James Harvey noted that “no one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur,” and her work remains central to the style’s legacy. Arthur rose to prominence in the mid‑1930s and became best known for her collaborations with director Frank Capra, starring in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can’t Take It with You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). These films cemented her image as the relatable, spirited heroine of Depression‑era American cinema. She earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in The More the Merrier (1943). Although she famously disliked the pressures of Hollywood and often retreated from public life, Arthur continued to work selectively after the 1940s. She delivered a memorable dramatic turn as Marian Starrett in George Stevens’ classic Western Shane (1953). She later returned to acting on television, appearing in a 1965 episode of Gunsmoke and starring in the 1966 sitcom The Jean Arthur Show. After leaving acting, Arthur taught drama at Vassar College and the North Carolina School of the Arts, where students remembered her as a passionate and generous instructor. She lived a largely private life in her later years and died in 1991 at the age of 90.

Acting credits

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington poster
7.8

After the death of a United States Senator, the idealistic Jefferson Smith is appointed as his replacement in Washington. The naive and earnest new senator soon finds himself battling political corruption.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

1939

Shane poster
7.3

A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smouldering settler and rancher conflict forces him to act.

Shane

1953

You Can't Take It with You poster
7.5

Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.

You Can't Take It with You

1938

The Talk of the Town poster
7.3

Hilarity ensues when a falsely accused fugitive from justice hides at the house of his childhood friend, which she has recently rented to a high-principled law teacher.

The Talk of the Town

1942

The Plainsman poster
6.5

Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Buffalo Bill go up against Indians and a gunrunner.

The Plainsman

1936

A Foreign Affair poster
7.1

In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the US congresswoman investigating her.

A Foreign Affair

1948

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town poster
7.5

Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

1936

Only Angels Have Wings poster
7.3

A traveling performer arrives at a remote South American port town where the head of an air freight service must risk his pilots' lives to earn a major contract.

Only Angels Have Wings

1939

The Whole Town's Talking poster
6.9

Ordinary man-in-the-street Arthur Ferguson Jones leads a very straightforward life. He's never late for work and nothing interesting ever happens to him. One day everything changes: he oversleeps and is fired as an example, he's then mistaken for evil criminal killer Mannion and is arrested. The resemblance is so striking that the police give him a special pass to avoid a similar mistake. The real Mannion sees the opportunity to steal the pass and move around freely and chaos results.

The Whole Town's Talking

1935

The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind poster
8.2

This documentary revisits the making of Gone with the Wind via archival footage, screen tests, insightful interviews and rare film footage.

The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind

1988

Most Precious Thing in Life poster
5.8

An unwed mother watches as her illegitimate son is raised by others. Director Lambert Hillyer's 1934 drama stars Jean Arthur, Richard Cromwell, Donald Cook, Anita Louise, Jane Darwell, Mary Forbes and Ward Bond.

Most Precious Thing in Life

1934

Seven Chances poster
7.5

Struggling stockbroker Jimmie Shannon learns that, if he gets married by 7 p.m. on his 27th birthday -- which is today -- he'll inherit $7 million from an eccentric relative.

Seven Chances

1925

Diamond Jim poster
6.5

A loose biopic based on the life of Gilded Age tycoon "Diamond" Jim Brady.

Diamond Jim

1935

History Is Made at Night poster
6.7

An American woman seeking divorce from her wealthy, controlling husband falls for a romantic Parisian who saves her from his entrapment.

History Is Made at Night

1937

Arizona poster
6.5

Phoebe Titus is a tough, swaggering pioneer woman, but her ways become decidedly more feminine when she falls for California bound Peter Muncie. But Peter won't be distracted from his journey and Phoebe is left alone and plenty busy with villains Jefferson Carteret and Lazarus Ward plotting at every turn to destroy her freighting company. She has not seen the last of Peter, however.

Arizona

1940

Becoming Cary Grant poster
6.6

For the first time one of Hollywood's greatest stars tells his own story, in his own words. From a childhood of poverty to global fame, Cary Grant, the ultimate self-made star, explores his own screen image and what it took to create it.

Becoming Cary Grant

2017

The More the Merrier poster
7.0

It's World War II and there is a severe housing shortage everywhere - especially in Washington, D.C. where Connie Milligan rents an apartment. Believing it to be her patriotic duty, Connie offers to sublet half of her apartment, fully expecting a suitable female tenent. What she gets instead is mischievous, middle-aged Benjamin Dingle. Dingle talks her into subletting to him and then promptly sublets half of his half to young, irreverent Joe Carter - creating a situation tailor-made for comedy and romance.

The More the Merrier

1943

Going Hollywood: The '30s poster
9.0

Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War.

Going Hollywood: The '30s

1984

Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel poster
NR

Profiles the life of performer Hattie McDaniel, the first Black American to win an Oscar, and her unapologetic resilience in the face of critics.

Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel

2001

Easy Living poster
7.2

J.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it out the window, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith. But it isn't so easy to just give away something so valuable, as he soon learns.

Easy Living

1937

Thundering Romance poster
7.0

A cowboy sets out to help a pretty young girl who is about to lose her ranch when crooks plan to foreclose on it because she doesn't have enough money to make her mortgage payment. He puts together a cattle drive in order to sell the herd to raise the money to pay off the note, but when the crooks hear about this, they make plans to stampede the herd along the way.

Thundering Romance

1924

No artwork available
7.0

Ruth Burroughs the daughter of a beleaguered rancher whose valuable property is threatened by a greedy railroad company

Thundering Through

1925

The Iron Horse poster
6.8

Brandon, a surveyor, dreams of building a railway to the west. He sets off with his son, Davy, to survey a route. They discover a new pass which will shave 200 miles off the expected distance, but they are set upon by a party of Cheyenne. One of them, a white renegade with only two fingers on his right hand, kills Brandon and scalps him. Davy is all alone now.

The Iron Horse

1925

The Devil and Miss Jones poster
7.6

The wealthiest man in the world, John P. Merrick, is a private person who likes to stay anonymous. One of his many assets is Neeley's Department Store. There is labor unrest at the store, and the employees' anger is directed at him, who they hang in effigy outside the store despite not knowing what he looks like. Merrick, not happy at what he sees going on, decides to mete out the rabble-rousers. So he goes undercover as a sales clerk in the shoe department.

The Devil and Miss Jones

1941