Remembering Paulette Goddard: Dancer, Actress, Spy, Femme Fatale, Pansexual!

Andy Warhol began interviewing Paulette for a book, but as she told her life stories even he was shocked. They would become lifelong friends.

Paulette Goddard understood sexual power growing up with a mother that would use her to bilk rich men out of money. And get away with it.

We don’t even really know her age. We know it was sometime between 1909 and 1915 on June 3rd. In the 20th century aging actresses often found their careers over so some wouldn’t answer and some would lie about their age. As a teenager her mother would take her on steamship voyages and the two of them would bilk rich men out of money. None of the men ever complained.

In 1926 when she was most likely 15 or 16 (or who knows maybe 20) when she lied about her age to join the Ziegfeld Follies in the show NO FOOLIN’.

Paulette Goddard in the Follies.

While at the Follies she was at first shocked that men who had never met her would send her jewelry to try and get her to date them. (I will pause here for women reading this to say, “Men are so stupid”). She would make it a rule that any man who wanted to date her would have to give her jewelry in advance. This did not guarantee a date, and the jewelry was not returned if she turned them down.

But before she was in the Follies she had a quickie marriage with a lumber executive and in the divorce settlement she was awarded $350,000 (about 8.5 million in today’s money) and he gave her a Duesenberg roadster worth $18,000 (about $400,000 in today’s money) as a parting gift. I will pause here for all men to say, “My god what was sex with her like?”.

She moved to Hollywood and instantly became one of the Goldwyn Girls, alongside Betty Grable, Virginia Bruce and Lucille Ball in 1930. And then she met Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin called his penis “the 8th wonder of the world”. He would often brag he could have sex all night long and control when he climaxed. Paulette told her friends he was not exaggerating at all.

Charlie Chaplin Modern Times 1936:

Click this link to watch MODERN TIMES! 

 

Chaplin and Paulette claimed to have married in China in 1936, the same year Chaplin made her a star in MODERN TIMES. However, when David Selznick offered her the role of Scarlet in GONE WITH THE WIND he asked to see her marriage certificate. She couldn’t find it. The odds are, they were “living in sin” as the expression was in those days.

Now we get into her spy work. To understand that you must understand how a spy cell works. Think of it as a hub with spokes. The hub is the Director of operations, the spokes are sometimes paid and recorded, often not. The spokes often don’t even know each other. The first red flag on the field was that Chaplin was doing a film parody of Hitler called THE GREAT DICTATOR. Paulette was to co-star, but this was during the period of the Hitler-Stalin Peace Pact. The Communist Party USA condemned the film while it was being made. To them FDR and Churchill were war mongers and Hitler wanted peace. The stories about the treatment of Jews in Germany were Zionist lies. At times Chaplin thought he should abandon the project, but Paulette encouraged him to keep working on it.

When the film came out, Stalin had ordered all communist party members to denounce Hitler and stop calling him a socialist. All of a sudden, the communist newspapers began praising Chaplin and the film.

When the film was completed, Paulette decided to move on. Chaplin’s lawyers told him he didn’t legally owe her anything, but he gave her several million dollars. Obviously, he was still in love with her. Had the U.S. government asked Paulette to make sure Chaplin made the film? But wait. There’s more.

Was Hollywood actress and former wife to Charlie Chaplin Paulette Goddard a spy? The artist Diego Rivera rescued Leon Trotsky from a house that a dozen Mexican Communist Party members had shot up. Trotsky was later killed by a CP member with an icepick after Trotsky’s son had been poisoned, and a death warrant was issued to Communist Party members in Mexico to kill Rivera. What the reds never knew was that Rivera was a spy trying to turn Trotsky to our side. Paulette became Diego’s beard - his cover and drove him out of Mexico at great risk to her own life. They say he fell madly in love with her, gave her many of his paintings and painted this one. There was more to Paulette than met the eye!

Paulette would have her greatest film success when she teamed up with Bob Hope in the brilliant horror comedy:

The Cat and Canary (1939) 

click this link for THE CAT AND THE CANARY!

Burgess Meredith met and married Paulette after filming SECOND CHORUS. But he had to follow her stipulations. They would live in separate homes and he would have to always call before coming over. Burgess also never knew how much she was worth, they lived off his money. She would have “affairs” with Spencer Tracy, David Niven, Gary Cooper, John Wayne and many more. While married the infamous Ciro’s incident happened.

The now legendary incident involving Paulette and director Anatole Litvak took place at Ciro’s Hollywood restaurant and night club. There are several accounts of what transpired, but the most likely appears to be this one: Paulette allegedly lost one of her ear-rings, so she and Litvak disappeared under the table to look for it. They were under the tablecloth for some considerable time and began making rather convincing moans and groans. Whether she was fellating her dinner partner, (as the tabloids delighted in assuming), or whether the couple were merely putting on a show for the aghast patrons, we will probably never know for sure. Whatever the real story, puritanical America was mortified by the possibilities. Outraged letters from families of American soldiers (the USA was not even at war yet), were sent to the Department of State in Washington D.C. The government took the matter seriously and even summoned witnesses, such as director Jean Negulesco, to hear their side of the story. Litvak had a nervous breakdown over the publicity! Thirty-five years later, director Hal Ashby drew inspiration from the story for his film Shampoo (1975), and had characters played by Warren Beatty and Julie Christie re-enact the incident. -Alan Royale

Burgess didn’t seem to care!

This was not the scandal that ended her career. She purchased a beach house where she, Evelyn Keyes and up and coming actor Peter Lawford could party.

Evelyn Keyes.

When the tabloids discovered there was only one bed, it would become an international scandal. Keyes and Paulette were immediately told they were no longer A actors. Their roles would be B and C films by lesser studios they would be loaned out to. Lawford however was praised by studio execs who considered his escapade proof he was a man’s man and he became a A level actor. That’s just how it was in those days.

Burgess and she would divorce, but he insisted it had nothing to do with the beach house.

Paulette continued her affairs not caring what Hollywood thought. Or anyone else for that matter. Howard Hughes tried to sign her but she already knew the women who signed his contracts never saw him or worked. He saw her more than any of the actresses he signed. She met writer Erich Maria Remarque who wrote ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. She would stay with him living in Switzerland for 18 years until he died. She would fly into NYC to attend fundraisers and became quite the socialite. When she died she had the largest fortune of any woman or man in Hollywood. She gave $20 million to New York University - The Paulette Goddard Residence Hall is named in her honor.

Paulette would often attend fundraisers around the world with Andy Warhol.

Behind the paywall: DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID. Written by Burgess Meredith her husband at the time, also starring Irene Ryan (Granny, The Beverly Hillbillies). Subscribe and please consider becoming a paid subscriber for access to our outrageous film library!