Gertrude Astor

The first actress to sign a contract with Universal in 1915, Gertrude Astor (born in Ohio as Gertrude Irene Astor) began her career playing trombone and saxophone on a riverboat. Towering over most of her leading men at 5’11”, she often played golddiggers, rich socialites or a leading lady’s best friend in such one-reeled films and feature length silents as Polly Redhead (1917), The Price of a Good Time (1917), The Girl Who Wouldn’t Quit (1918), The Lion Man (1919), Mary Pickford’s Through the Back Door (1921), The Wall Flower (1922), Alice Adams (1923), The Ne’er-Do-Well (1923), Stage Struck (1925), The Boy Friend (1926), Kiki (1926), The Strong Man (1926), Shanghaied (1927), The Cat and the Canary (1927) and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927) (as Little Eva’s mother). The popular female stars she bolstered included Pickford, Norma Talmadge, Gloria Swanson, Patsy Ruth Miller, Colleen Moore, Shirley Mason, Olive Borden and Laura La Plante

With the advent of sound, Astor’s career continued, landing her in a number of two-reel comedies, mostly with the Hal Roach studio and occasionally with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the “Our Gang” gang and Charley Chase. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life!” seemed to be one of her most used lines in films. Acting until the 1960s and often in bit parts (she once played a corpse in The Scarlet Claw (1944), her last movie bit was for John Ford in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Astor often relayed her film memories to friends, fans and historians. At one point in her career she and actress Lilyan Tashman, were known as the most elegant and best dressed women in Hollywood. Astor died following a stroke on her 90th birthday at the Motion Piture Home in Woodland Hills.