ZaSu Pitts
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| ZaSu Pitts | |
|---|---|
 Pitts in trailer for the film Tish (1942) | |
| Born | January 3, 1894 Parsons, Kansas |
| Died | June 7, 1963 (aged 69) Hollywood, Los Angeles, California |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1917-1963 |
| Spouse | Tom Gallery (m.1920-1933; divorced) John E. Woodall (m.1933-1963; her death) |
ZaSu Pitts (
/ˈseɪzuː ˈpɪts/;[1] January 3, 1894 – June 7, 1963)[2] was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.
/ˈseɪzuː ˈpɪts/;[1] January 3, 1894 – June 7, 1963)[2] was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.Biography
Early life
ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas, to Rulandus and Nellie (née Shay) Pitts; she was the third of four children. Her father, who had lost a leg while serving in the 76th New York Infantry Regiment in the Civil War, had settled the family in Kansas by the time ZaSu was born.[3]
The names of her father's sisters, Eliza and Susan, became the basis for ZaSu's unique first name, which has been (incorrectly) spelled as Zazu Pitts in many film credits and articles. Though the name is commonly mispronounced /ˈzæzuː/ ZAZ-oo or /ˈzeɪsuː/ ZAY-soo, or /ˈzeɪzuː/ ZAY-zoo, in her 1963 book Candy Hits (p. 15),[citation needed] Pitts herself gives the correct pronunciation as "Say Zoo" (/ˈseɪzuː/), recounting that Mary Pickford predicted, "[M]any will mispronounce it," and adding, "How right [she] was."
In 1903, when she was nine years old, the family moved to Santa Cruz, California, seeking a warmer climate and better job opportunities. Her childhood home at 208 Lincoln Street still stands. She attended Santa Cruz High School, where she participated in school theatricals.[4]
Career
Pitts made her stage debut in 1914–15 doing school and local community theater in Santa Cruz, California. Going to Los Angeles in 1916 she spent many months imploring studio casting offices for work as a film extra. Finally she was discovered for substantive roles in films by pioneer screenwriter Frances Marion. Marion cast Pitts as an orphaned slavey (child of work) in the silent film, The Little Princess (1917), starring Mary Pickford.
Years later, Pitts became a leading lady in Erich von Stroheim's epic masterpiece, Greed (1924); based on this performance, von Stroheim labeled Pitts "the greatest dramatic actress". Von Stroheim also featured her in his films Sins of the Fathers (1928), The Wedding March (1928), War Nurse (1930) and Walking Down Broadway, which was re-edited by Alfred L. Werker and released as Hello, Sister! (1933). She earned praise in all those films.
Circa 1920
Pitts grew in popularity following a series of Universal one-reeler comedies and earned her first feature-length lead in King Vidor's Better Times (1919). The following year she met and married actor Tom Gallery. The couple paired in several films, including Bright Eyes (1921), Heart of Twenty (1920), Patsy (1921) and A Daughter of Luxury (1922). Their daughter, Ann, was born in 1922.
In 1924, the actress, now a reputable comedy farceuse, was given the greatest tragic role of her career in Erich von Stroheim's epic classic, Greed (1924), a twelve-hour-plus picture, edited to under four hours. The surprise casting initially shocked Hollywood, but showed that Pitts could draw tears with her doleful demeanor as well as laughs. The movie has gained respect over time, having failed initially at the box office due to its extensive cutting.
Pitts enjoyed her greatest fame in the 1930s, often starring in B movies and comedy shorts, teamed with Thelma Todd. She also played secondary parts in many films. Her stock persona (a fretful, flustered, worrisome spinster) made her instantly recognizable and was often imitated in cartoons and other films. She starred in a number of Hal Roach shorts and features, and co-starred in a series of feature-length comedies with Slim Summerville.
Switching between comedy shorts and features, by the advent of sound, she was relegated to comedy roles. A bitter disappointment was when she was replaced in the classic war drama All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) by Beryl Mercer after her initial appearance in previews drew unintentional laughs, despite the intensity of her acting. She had viewers rolling in the aisles in The Dummy (1929), Finn and Hattie (1931), The Guardsman (1931), Blondie of the Follies (1932), Sing and Like It (1934) and Ruggles of Red Gap (1935).
In the 1940s, she also found work in vaudeville and on radio, trading quivery banter with Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, and Rudy Vallee, among others. She appeared several times on the earliest Fibber McGee and Molly show, playing a dizzy dame constantly looking for a husband. Her brief stint in the Hildegarde Withers mystery series, replacing Edna May Oliver, was not successful, however. In 1944 Pitts tackled Broadway, making her debut in the mystery, Ramshackle Inn. The play, written expressly for her, fared well, and she took the show on the road in later years. Post-war films continued to give Pitts the chance to play comic snoops and flighty relatives in such fare as Life with Father (1947), but in the 1950s she started focusing on TV.
This culminated in her best known series role, playing second banana to Gale Storm on The Gale Storm Show (1956) (also known as Oh, Susannah), as Elvira Nugent ("Nugie"), the shipboard beautician. Her last role was as a switchboard operator in the Stanley Kramer comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and, less than seven months after the filming of the last scene, she became that movie's second cast member to die after filming was completed.
Last years
Declining health dominated Pitts' later years, particularly after she was diagnosed with cancer in the mid-1950s. However, she continued to work until the very end – making brief appearances in The Thrill of It All (1963) with Doris Day and James Garner, and as a cameo switchboard operator in the sheriff's office in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Death
She died June 7, 1963, aged 69, in Hollywood and was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.
Marriages
- Thomas Sarsfield Gallery (July 23, 1920 – May 2, 1933; divorced); two children: ZaSu Ann Gallery (natural) and Donald Michael "Sonny" Gallery (born as Marvin Carville La Marr), whom they adopted and renamed after the 1926 drug-related death of his mother and Pitts' friend, silent film actress Barbara La Marr.
- John Edward "Eddie" Woodall (October 8, 1933 – June 7, 1963; her death).
Legacy
- ZaSu Pitts was an excellent cook and collector of candy recipes, which culminated in a cookbook, Candy Hits by ZaSu Pitts, published posthumously in 1963.
- Mae Questel caricatured Pitts's voice and "oh, dear" mannerisms for the character Olive Oyl for the Fleischer Studios animated cartoon version of Popeye the Sailor.
- ZaSu Pitts has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- In 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.[4]
- In Parsons, Kansas, there is a star tile at the entrance to the Parsons Theatre to commemorate her.
- During the 1980s, a large R&B/Soul band based in San Francisco performed under the name "The ZaSu Pitts Memorial Orchestra"
- She was referenced by the comedic trio Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker in the 1982 police spoof comedy series Police Squad! episode "A Substantial Gift (The Broken Promise)" (first aired on March 4, 1982). In that episode, lead character Frank Drebin exposes a suspect's secret identity by reciting that she was formerly "a brunette hitman known as Zasu Pitts".
- A street in Las Vegas, Nevada is named after her.
- Pitts is mentioned in the play and movie version of The Man Who Came to Dinner. The main character, Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley), orders his nurse to "Stop acting like ZaSu Pitts and explain yourself!"
- In a made-for-TV version of The Man Who Came to Dinner, in which Orson Welles played Whiteside, Pitts was cast as the nurse, Miss Preen, so the remark about "stop acting like ZaSu Pitts" was actually made directly to Pitts herself.
Partial filmography
Below is a highly incomplete list. Full listings of all films (silent and sound), radio, stage, Broadway, television and vaudeville are indexed in the only authorized, complete biography by Gayle D. Haffner, HANDS With A HEART: The Personal Biography of Actress ZaSu Pitts (Outskirts Press, Inc., 2011)| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1917 | The Little Princess | Becky | ||
| 1918 | How Could You Jean? | Oscar's Sweetheart | ||
| 1918 | The Talk of the Town | |||
| 1919 | Better Times | Nancy Scroggs | ||
| 1919 | The Other Half | Jennie Jones, The Jazz Kid | ||
| 1919 | Poor Relations | Daisy Perkins | ||
| 1920 | Seeing It Through | Betty Lawrence | ||
| 1921 | Patsy | Patsy | ||
| 1922 | Youth to Youth | Emily | ||
| 1923 | Souls for Sale | Herself | Cameo role | |
| 1923 | Three Wise Fools | Mickey | ||
| 1923 | Hollywood | Herself | Cameo role | |
| 1924 | Daughters of Today | Lorena | ||
| 1924 | Triumph | A Factory Girl | ||
| 1924 | Changing Husbands | Delia | ||
| 1924 | Greed | Trina | ||
| 1925 | The Great Divide | Polly Jordan | ||
| 1925 | Pretty Ladies | Maggie Keenan | ||
| 1925 | The Great Love | Nancy | ||
| 1926 | Monte Carlo | Hope Durant | ||
| 1926 | Sunny Side Up | Evelyn | ||
| 1927 | Casey at the Bat | Camille | With Wallace Beery and Ford Sterling | |
| 1928 | The Wedding March | Cecelia Schweisser | ||
| 1929 | Paris | Harriet | ||
| 1929 | The Locked Door | Telephone Girl | ||
| 1929 | This Thing Called Love | Clara Bertrand | ||
| 1930 | No, No, Nanette | Pauline Hastings | ||
| 1930 | The Devil's Holiday | Ethel | ||
| 1930 | Monte Carlo | Bertha | ||
| 1931 | The Bad Sister | Minnie | ||
| 1931 | Seed | Jennie | ||
| 1931 | Penrod and Sam | Mrs. Bassett | Alternative title: The Adventures of Penrod and Sam | |
| 1931 | The Guardsman | Liesl, the Maid | ||
| 1931 | On the Loose | Zasu | Short subject | |
| 1932 | Broken Lullaby | Anna, Holderlin's Maid | ||
| 1932 | Shopworn | Aunt Dot | ||
| 1932 | Destry Rides Again | Temperance Worker | Alternative title: Justice Rides Again With Tom Mix | |
| 1932 | Westward Passage | Mrs. Truesdale | ||
| 1932 | Back Street | Mrs. Dole | ||
| 1932 | Blondie of the Follies | Gertie | ||
| 1932 | The Crooked Circle | Nora Rafferty | ||
| 1933 | They Just Had to Get Married | Molly Hull | ||
| 1933 | Hello, Sister! | Millie | ||
| 1933 | Meet the Baron | Zasu | ||
| 1933 | Mr. Skitch | Maddie Skitch | ||
| 1934 | Dames | Matilda Ounce Hemingway | ||
| 1934 | Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch | Miss Hazy | ||
| 1934 | The Gay Bride | Mirabelle | ||
| 1935 | Ruggles of Red Gap | Prunella Judson | With Charles Laughton and Charles Ruggles | |
| 1935 | Going Highbrow | |||
| 1936 | Thirteen Hours by Air | Miss Harkins | ||
| 1936 | The Plot Thickens | Hildegarde Withers | ||
| 1937 | Forty Naughty Girls | Hildegarde Withers | ||
| 1939 | The Lady's from Kentucky | Dulcey Lee | With George Raft and Ellen Drew | |
| 1939 | Eternally Yours | Mrs. Bingham | ||
| 1940 | It All Came True | Miss Flint | ||
| 1940 | No, No Nanette | Pauline Hastings | ||
| 1941 | Niagara Falls | Emmy Sawyer | ||
| 1942 | The Bashful Bachelor | Geraldine | ||
| 1942 | So's Your Aunt Emma | Aunt Emma | Alternative title: Meet the Mob | |
| 1943 | Let's Face It! | Cornelia Figeson | ||
| 1946 | Breakfast in Hollywood | Elvira Spriggens | ||
| 1947 | Life with Father | Cousin Cora Cartwright | With William Powell and Irene Dunne | |
| 1950 | Francis | Nurse Valerie Humpert | With Donald O'Connor and Patricia Medina | |
| 1952 | Denver and Rio Grande | Jane Dwyer | With Edmond O'Brien and Sterling Holloway | |
| 1954 | Francis Joins the WACS | Lt. Valerie Humpert | With Donald O'Connor, Julie Adams, and Mamie Van Doren | |
| 1957 | This Could Be the Night | Mrs. Katie Shea | With Jean Simmons and Tony Franciosa | |
| 1961 | The Teenage Millionaire | Aunt Theodora | ||
| 1963 | The Thrill of It All | Olivia | With Doris Day and James Garner | |
| 1963 | It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World | Gertie–Switchboard Operator | With Spencer Tracy |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1954 | The Best of Broadway | Miss Preen | Episode: "The Man Who Came to Dinner" |
| 1955 | Screen Directors Playhouse | Selma | Episode: "The Silent Partner" |
| 1956 | The 20th Century Fox Hour | Miss Appleton | Episode: "Mr. Belvedere" |
| 1956– 1960 | The Gale Storm Show | Elvira Nugent | 91 episodes |
| 1957 | Private Secretary | Aunt Martha | Episode: "Not Quite Paradise" |
| 1960 | The Dennis O'Keefe Show | Loretta Kimball | Episode: "Dimples" |
| 1961 | Guestward, Ho! | Episode: "Lonesome's Gal" | |
| 1961 | Perry Mason | Daphne Whilom | Episode: "The Case of the Absent Artist" |
| 1963 | Burke's Law | Mrs. Bowie | Episode: "Who Killed Holly Howard?" |
See also
Notes
- ^ Candy Hits by ZaSu Pitts; Duell, Sloan and Pearce; 1963; p. 15
- ^ Concerning Pitts' year of birth, about which the actress often dissembled, some sources cite 1894 (IMDB: Zasu Pitts, Find-a-Grave, Golden Silents, Who2, and InfoPlease), while other sources cite 1898 (Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion, 12th edition, HarperCollins, 1997, ISBN 0-00-255798-3 and TCM:Biography) or even 1900 (Allmovie:Overview and New York Times obituary (June 8, 1963))
- ^ "Rulandus Pitts biography on 76th NY Regiment site". Bpmlegal.com. http://www.bpmlegal.com/76NY/76pittsr.html. Retrieved June 7, 2010.
- ^ a b Barbara Giffen. "ZaSu Pitts: Actress 1898–1963". Santa Cruz Public Library. http://www.santacruzpl.org/history/articles/241. Retrieved June 7, 2010.
External links
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to: ZaSu Pitts |
- HANDS WITH A HEART: The Personal Biography of Actress ZaSu Pitts (authorized biography); publisher's page
- ZaSu Pitts at the Internet Movie Database
- ZaSu Pitts at AllRovi
- ZaSu Pitts at the Internet Broadway Database
- Photographs and literature
A glamour shot from early in her career.
Zasu Pitts with Mary Pickford at the dawn of her career.
GREED, dramatic picture directed by Erich Von Stroheim.
In GREED, the characters in the story are obsessed with money, which ends in tragedy for all.
CATCH AS CATCH CAN
Neilan, Thelma Todd, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Zasu Pitts
CATCH AS CATCH CAN
Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts between shots
This I suppose is what was called "Lake Laurel and Hardy".
MRS WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH
with W. C. Fields.
THE PLOT THICKENS
FRANCIS
Donald O'Connor, Zasu Pitts
FRANCIS
Donald O'Connor, Zasu Pitts
OH SUSANNA
With Gale Storm
Kellogg's Corn Flakes Commercial
In which Superman saves breakfast by bringing her more corn flakes.
Book by Zasu Pitts
Zasu Pitts shows us how her mother derived her name from the names "Eliza" and "Susan".
Watch this on youtube to hear the correct pronunciation of her name:
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Zasu Pitts at the Reynolds Brothers site:
http://www.reynoldsbrothers.net/index.php/site/about/zasu_pitts
Zasu Pitts at Golden Silents:
http://www.goldensilents.com/stars/zasupitts.html
Zasu Pitts site on tumbler:
http://zasupittsfan.tumblr.com/
Candy Hits By Zasu Pitts ( recipes ):
http://community.tasteofhome.com/community_forums/f/30/p/246238/247589.aspx
Zasu Pitts and Gale Storm on television:
http://cruiselinehistory.com/tag/gale-storm/
Gale Storm Fan Site:
http://www.galestorm.tv/
"Our Club" ( Silent movie actresses club, Zasu Pitts was a member ):
http://felixinhollywood.blogspot.com/2010/03/our-club.html
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