Everything about Miriam Hopkins totally explained
Ellen Miriam Hopkins (
October 18,
1902 –
October 9,
1972) was an
Oscar-nominated
American actress.
Career
Born in
Savannah, Georgia, and raised in
Bainbridge, a town in southwestern Georgia near the Alabama border, Hopkins attended a finishing school in
Vermont and later
Syracuse University in
Syracuse, New York. At the age of 20, she became a
chorus girl in
New York City. In 1930, she signed with
Paramount Pictures, and made her official film debut in
Fast and Loose.
Her first great success was in
Ernst Lubitsch's masterpiece
Trouble in Paradise (1932), in which she proved her charm and her wit as a beautiful and jealous pickpocket. During the rest of the 1930s she appeared in such films as
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931),
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931),
Becky Sharp (1935), for which she was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actress,
Barbary Coast (1935),
These Three (1936) and
The Old Maid (1939). Hopkins rejected the role of Ellie Andrews in
It Happened One Night (1934).
Hopkins had well-publicized fights with her arch-enemy
Bette Davis (who had an affair with Hopkins’s then husband, Anatole Litvak), when they co-starred in their two films
The Old Maid (1939) and
Old Acquaintance (1943). One of the scenes in
Old Acquaintance which Davis admitted to enjoying very much was one where she shakes Hopkins hard. There were even press photos taken with both divas in boxing rings with gloves up and director Vincent Sherman between the two.
After
Old Acquaintance she didn't work again in film until 1949's
The Heiress. In
Mitchell Leisen's 1951's classic
screwball comedy The Mating Season she gave a comic performance as
Gene Tierney's over the top mother,
Thelma Ritter also co-starred as Tierney's maid-mother in law.
Hopkins was one of the actresses who auditioned to portray
Scarlett O'Hara in
Gone with the Wind, having one advantage that no other leading lady had: she was a native Georgian; however she didn't get the part, which went to
Vivien Leigh, with
Paulette Goddard close behind.
Private life
She was married and divorced four times: first to actor
Brandon Peters, second to aviator
Austin Parker, third to the director
Anatole Litvak, and fourth to war correspondent
Raymond B. Brock. In 1932, Hopkins adopted a son, Michael Hopkins.
She was also known for throwing wild parties that bordered on orgies and engaging in a
bisexual lifestyle, as chronicled in
The Sewing Circle, a book written (by
Boze Hadleigh) about
lesbians in Hollywood.
Hopkins died in
New York, New York from a
heart attack nine days before her 70th birthday.
She has two stars on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for
motion pictures at 1701 Vine Street, and one for
television at 1708 Vine Street.
Filmography
Further Information
Get more info on 'Miriam Hopkins'.
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