Paulette: The Adventurous Life of Paulette Goddard

by Joe Morella, Edward Z. Epstein

Profiles the adventurous life of Paulette Goddard, from young hopeful to Ziegfeld girl to Hollywood star; drawing on numerous sources ranging from personal interviews to recently declassified FBI documents

Genres: Biography, Film, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1985

Reviews

[Seamus Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first noticed Paulette Goddard in Chaplin's Modern Times. Then I saw her name on the copyright page of All Quiet On The Western Front. Could it be the same Paulette Goddard? It is. So, I was intrigued. You'd think that someone who married Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Marie Remarque; someone who co-starred in two of Chaplin's finest films, danced with Fred Astaire, helped launch Bob Hope's career, and nearly landed the role of Scarlett O'Hara; someone who was an avid collector of art (especially Modern and Impressionist paintings) and antiques (pre-Columbian, Egyptian and Western Asian); someone who was friends with Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera (was, in fact, painted by both more than once) even going so far as to help Rivera smuggle fifteen paintings out of Mexico while he was under house arrest following the assassination of Leon Trotsky . . . You would think that such a person's life would easily make for a interesting, lively biography. Unfortunately, this is the only biography available and it is a lazy, sloppy, snooze. The authors clearly have a Hollywood bio template in mind and then struggle to fit Goddard's life into its narrow confines. Which is a shame since much of what is interesting about Goddard, especially later in life, has little to do with Hollywood. You'll get just as much (if not more) useful information from the Wikipedia entry on Paulette Goddard as you will from this biography. I found myself wanting to read the relevant chapters in biographies of Chaplin and Remarque (and maybe Kahlo/Rivera, etc as well) in an attempt to get a better sense of this intriguing figure: was she really just the vapid, pretty, social climber some have accused her of being -- or were the legendary artists and writers she befriended and married drawn to her for something beyond her looks?

[Joshua Blair · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paulette Goddard is amazing and beautiful. This book is not. No bibliography, poorly written, and lingers too long on minor points like Goddard's acquisitive nature and whether she was or was not actually married to Charlie Chaplain.

[Dixie Laite · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.