Paulette Goddard (June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress. A child fashion model and a performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl, she became a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. Her most notable films were her first major role, as Charles Chaplin's leading lady in Modern Times, and Chaplin's subsequent film The Great Dictator. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in So Proudly We Hail! (1943). Her husbands included Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque.

Biography

Goddard married the much older lumber tycoon Edgar James on June 28, 1927, when she was 17 years old; the couple moved to North Carolina. They separated two years later and divorced in 1932.

In 1934, Goddard began a relationship with Charlie Chaplin. She later moved into his Beverly Hills home. They were reportedly married in secret in Canton, China, in June 1936. Aside from referring to Goddard as "my wife" at the October 1940 premiere of The Great Dictator, neither Goddard nor Chaplin publicly commented on their marital status. On June 4, 1942, Goddard was granted a Mexican divorce from Chaplin. In May 1944, she married Burgess Meredith at David O. Selznick's Beverly Hills home. They divorced in June 1949.

In 1958, Goddard married author Erich Maria Remarque. They remained married until Remarque's death in 1970.

Goddard had no children from any of her marriages. In October 1944, she suffered the miscarriage of a son with Burgess Meredith. She was the first stepmother to Chaplin's sons, Charles, Jr. and Sydney Chaplin, whose mother was Lita Grey. Grey was only two years older than Goddard.


Discrepancies regarding year of birth

Like many other actresses, Goddard tampered with her year of birth. According to one of Goddard's biographers, Julie Gilbert, the actress was born in either Whitestone Landing, Queens, New York or Great Neck, Long Island on June 3, 1910, and according to her birth certificate was named Marion Goddard Levy. However, various later documents mention different birth years and places, as well as names. Legal documents and a passport listed her birth year as 1905 and 1915, and when asked to clarify the confusion over her age in a 1945 interview with Life, Goddard claimed she was in fact born in 1915.

She later claimed in a magazine column to have been born in Manhattan, and according to her second husband, Charlie Chaplin, she was born in Brooklyn. Goddard's name has also been cited as Pauline Goddard Levy and Pauline Marion Levy.

However, according to the U.S. Census taken on January 5, 1920, Goddard (as Pauline G. Levy) and her parents (Joseph R. and Alta M. Levy) were living in Kansas City, Missouri. She is listed as having been born in New York, and her age is given as nine years, the age being the age of the individual as of his or her last birthday, which is the question asked by census enumerators (see Jackson County, Missouri enumeration District 236, p. 5-B, family 145.) Also, her gravestone in Switzerland clearly gives her year of birth as 1910. The 1910 Census confirms Pauline's self-report as her parents were living in Manhattan in April 1910, less than two months before her birth.

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