Paulette Goddard

Born June 3, 1910 in Whitestone Landing, Queens, New York (though this is disputed, some claiming she was born in Long Island).

Died April 23, 1990 in Ticino, Switzerland.

Born Marion Goddard Levy (though also there are claims her birth name was Pauline Goddard Levy, or Pauline Marion Levy, or possibly Marion Pauline Levy).

As a young child she and her mother (Alta Mae Goddard) moved frequently, apparently trying to avoid any contact with Paulette's father, Joseph Russell Levy. Paulette worked as a model and eventually became a "Ziegfeld Girl" making her stage debut in the 1926 No Foolin'.

She married a lumber company president named Edgar James in 1927, then divorced him in 1929, reportedly eventually getting a $500K settlement, money that apparently played a part in her later relationship with Chaplin later (he advised her on handling it better). In 1929 she also appeared (uncredited) in the Laurel and Hardy short film Berth Marks and in the Barbara Stanwyck film The Locked Door.

She worked as an extra in a number of films, but had begun dating Charlie Chaplin in 1932, who later cast her in a starring role in Modern Times in 1936 and also in 1940 for The Great Dictator. Goddard and Chaplin separated in 1942 and divorced, if the inconclusive evidence that they secretly married is true, in 1943.

Goddard was married four times, best known are Chaplin and later to novelist Erich Maria Remarque (famous for writing All Quiet on the Western Front), with whom she remained until his death in 1970. In 1984 she donated Remarque's diaries to New York University.

The diaries are the latest in a series of gifts that Mrs. Remarque, the film actress, has made to New York University during the last decade. In 1977, she donated the manuscripts of many of her husband's later works, as well as his personal library. All are housed in the Remarque Room of the Fales Library on the third floor of the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at the university's Washington Square campus.

– New York Times, Feb 1984

Goddard was known for her sharp business skill and she amassed considerable wealth. During the "Hollywood blacklist" days when actors and directors were being interviewed for communist sympathies by The House Un-American Activities Committee, Goddard said "If anyone accuses me of being a communist I'll hit them with my diamond bracelets." Her collection of French impressionist paintings was considered of high quality and she sold a portion of it in 1979 for $3.1 million (soem reports say $2.9 million). That sale was because she was "tired of carting these paintings from Switzerland, to New York, and California." In her later years, Goddard lived most of the time in Switzerland. She made a substantial donation to New York University resulting in the naming of the Paulette Goddard Hall in her honor. She also put forward over $3 million dollar in scholarship funds for students for the New York University Tisch school of the Arts.

The last performance credit for Paulette Goddard was in the television show The Snoop Sisters that was aired December 18, 1972.

On this website:

So Proudly We Hail - 1943

Diary of A Chambermaid - 1946

The Women - 1939

The Cat and the Canary 1939

Six of Paulette Goddard's best known films

1. Modern Times (1936)
2. The Great Dictator (1940)
3. The Women (1939)
4. So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
5. Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
6. Kitty (1945)

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Original Page June 2014 | Updated May 31, 2025