Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,809
By This is the grave of Janet Gaynor.
Born in 1906 in Philadelphia, Laura Gainor grew up around the theater business. Her father was a painter for theater productions in the area. He taught his daughter the basics to get on stage–singing, dancing, acrobatics. He was good enough as a teacher that it worked. Now, her parents divorced and she went with her mom to Chicago and then later San Francisco, but she was interested in acting from a young child. In 1924, she got her family to move to Los Angeles to promote her career.
Soon performing as Janet Gaynor, it did not take her too long to start finding work. Her first role was a tiny one in a Hal Roach comedy, shot at the end of 1924. She started getting a bit more background work and then a few more prominent roles. In 1926, she got a screen test for The Johnstown Flood, which I have not seen but which evidently was a really important film in the advancement of effects to show a disaster. She did well as the third leading actor in the film and that got the attention of Fox executives, who gave her a five year contract.
Gaynor became one of the key actresses bridging the silent and talkie worlds, along with Joan Crawford, Mary Astor, and Dolores Del Rio. She almost immediately became perhaps the biggest star of dramas in the late silent period, including Murnau’s Sunrise and Borzage’s Street Angel. In fact, Gaynor won the Best Actress Oscar for 1929 for both films, as the first Oscars were about the totality of work for the year from actors instead of a single film. She would remain the youngest actress to win the award until Marlee Matlin won in 1986 for Children of a Lesser God.
Gaynor transitioned easily to sound and was one of the most bankable stars of the 30s. She was seen as the next Mary Pickford and in fact spent the early 30s doing sound remakes of a couple of Pickford films. She had top billing for State Fair, in 1933, and The Farmer Takes a Wife, in 1935, which was also Henry Fonda’s first big role. She also received top billing in Ladies in Love, which put her above such rising stars as Constance Bennett and Loretta Young. But by the late 30s, audiences were looking for a different kind of female lead and her star power began to dim.
Gaynor thought about retiring from about 1937 on, but held off for a bit. Even though her status at Fox was diminished, she had a career revival when David O. Selznick thought the lead in A Star is Born was perfect for Gaynor. This became a much revived film production over the years, including recently with Lady Gaga repeating Gaynor’s role. I admit I have never seen any of them. Costarring Frederic March, it was a huge hit in 1937 and she got another Academy Award nomination for it, though lost to Luisa Raynor for her performance in The Good Earth. Gaynor did one more film–1938’s The Young in Heart, a comedy with Paulette Goddard. But she was sick of acting. She had done it her whole life and wanted other things. She could have kept going for several more years of respectable to good money and reviews, but she just had enough. Fair enough.
Instead, she married the costume designer who just went by Adrian. Both were gay and this was likely a marriage of convenience, but they did have a son together. Whatever works for you and they stayed together until his death. They had a ranch in Brazil and homes in New York and California. Gaynor became a patron of the arts. She became a quite good painter and did a lot of charity work. In the 50s, she decided to do a bit of acting just for the fun of it. She most certainly didn’t need the money. But she would work a bit of TV, the kind of live theater stuff that a lot of aging actors did on TV at that time. In early 80s, she decided to try Broadway and did pretty good there. She played the lead in the stage adaptation of Harold and Maude in 1980 and was her performance was well-received in what was not considered a very good play. She also did a touring production of On Golden Pond. And was Gaynor on The Love Boat? Well hell yes.
In 1982, the car she, her friend Mary Martin, and their husbands were in was slammed by a drunk driver. Martin’s husband died, everyone else was seriously injured. Gaynor was hospitalized for four months and never really recovered her health, dying in 1984, at the age of 77.
Janet Gaynor is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, California.
If you would like this series to visit other winners of the First Academy Awards, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Plus yesterday was my birthday and writing this up is how I spent it, so let’s fund some birthday graves! Lewis Milestone. who won Best Comedic Director for Two Arabian Knights (which was long thought lost but was discovered in a Howard Hughes archive in 2016), is in Los Angeles and so is Benjamin Glazer, who won for Best Adapted Screenplay for 7th Heaven. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.