About Ann Harding
Ann Harding (born Dorothy Walton Gatley; August 7, 1902 – September 1, 1981) was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress. Harding was a regular on Broadway and on tour in the 1920s. In the 1930s, Harding was one of the first actresses to gain fame in the new medium of "talking pictures," and she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1931 for her work in Holiday. Harding was born Dorothy Walton Gatley and was the daughter of a prominent United States Army officer. She was raised primarily in East Orange, New Jersey and graduated from East Orange High School. Having gained her initial acting experience in school drama classes, she decided on a career as an actress and moved across the Hudson River to New York City. Due to her father's opposition to her career choice, she adopted the stage name Ann Harding. After initial work as a script reader, Harding began to win roles on Broadway and in small semiprofessional theaters, primarily in Pennsylvania. Around the late 1920s she moved to California to begin working in motion pictures, which were just beginning to include sound. Her work in plays had given her notable diction and stage presence, and she was quickly tapped for leading lady roles. By the late 1930s, she was becoming stereotyped as the beautiful, innocent, self-sacrificing woman, and film work became harder for her to obtain. After marrying conductor Werner Janssen in 1937, she worked only sporadically, with three notable roles coming in Eyes in the Night (1942), It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947) and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956). She worked occasionally in television between 1955 and 1965, and she appeared in two plays in the early 1960s, returning to the stage after an absence of over 30 years, including the lead in The Corn is Green in 1964 at the Studio Theater in Buffalo, New York. After her 1965 retirement, she resided in Sherman Oaks, California, where she died in 1981. Harding was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. With talking pictures becoming the standard, producers and directors discovered that Harding's diction and pace of speech worked well with the new sound recording technology, and she soon became a leading lady. These recordings led to acting work, and she made her Broadway debut in Like a King in 1921.
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