Gertrude Michael (June 1, 1911 – December 31, 1964) was an American film, stage and television actress.

Biography

Born as Lillian Gertrude Michael in Talladega, Alabama, she reportedly graduated from high school at the age of 14. She became a singer on the radio. She attended the University of Alabama and Converse College, Spartanburg, SC. Her childhood home in Talladega, Alabama was destroyed by fire in 2007.

In 1929 in Cincinnati she made her stage debut in a stock company. She subsequently appeared on Broadway in Rachel Crothers' Caught Wet (1931). She entered the movies playing Richard Arlen's fiancée in Wayward (1932), but her best-remembered role is probably as Rita Ross in Murder at the Vanities (1934), one of the last pre-Code films, in which she sang an ode to marijuana (Sweet Marijuana).

Among her television appearances, Michael was seen eleven times on Fireside Theater between 1950-1955 and three times on Schlitz Playhouse. She also made a guest appearance on Perry Mason in 1958 as Helen Rucker in "The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary."

She had an affair with writer Paul Cain (aka Peter Ruric). After they broke up, Cain wrote the role of the alcoholic lover (based on Michael) in his only novel published during his lifetime, Fast One.

Michael died, aged 53, from undisclosed causes, in Beverly Hills, California.