Happy Birthday, Paulette Goddard

June 3rd is Paulette Goddard's birthday. She was a Ziegfeld girl. She had a real thing for fine jewelry. She accepted lots of expensive gifts from many men and, according to her, never, ever gave any of it back. She was married three or four times, once possibly to Charlie Chaplin, depending on whom you believe. She missed out on the Scarlett O'Hara role in Gone with the Wind, but had her revenge on the Confederacy with her Southern accent in Reap the Wild Wind (1942). She was 5'4" and had great legs. She danced acceptably with Fred Astaire in Second Chorus (1940) and married her other co-star in that film, Burgess Meredith. Hollywood legend has it that Paulette knew about Cecil B. DeMille's foot fetish. When she went to see him about a role in North West Mounted Police (1940), she simply strutted into his office and put one of her bare feet on his desk. She got the part. Her last husband was novelist Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front, So Ends Our Night, and Arch of Triumph). When she died in Switzerland in 1970, she left $20 million to New York University. There is now a Paulette Goddard Hall at NYU. Pretty good for little Marion Levy from Long Island.