Wissenswertes

She joined the NAACP in 1934, having been disgusted by what she considered racism in her movie Prestige (1931). In 1935, she attended a benefit in support of the group's anti-lynching bill.

[May 4, 1933] Was saved, along with traveling companions Alexander Kirkland and Marie Lombard, from shark-infested waters off the coast of Havana, Cuba, when their sailboat overturned. They were accompanied by a sailor, Magin Alvarez Prieda, who did not survive the incident.

Her vehicle The Life of Vergie Winters (1934), in which she portrayed an unwed woman who carries on an illicit love affair with a married man and bears his child, was banned in Chicago and placed on the Catholic Church's list of films to be boycotted.

Was the first major female star to join the Screen Actors Guild and later held the rank of second Vice-President.

Was estranged from her only child, Jane, for several years before her death in 1981.

Was once a Dictaphone operator for the welfare division of Metropolitan Life.

Met actor Harry Bannister while she at Detroit's Garrick Theatre in 1926 as its lead actress, producer, casting director and business manager. She hired him as a last-minute replacement leading man and they married later that year (daughter Jane was born in 1928). Their divorce in 1932 led to a year-and-a-half-long custody battle.

Unlike most film stars at that time, Ann dressed down off-camera and had little concern for her outward appearance. She often attended premieres without makeup or fancy hair-dos. Gossip maven Adela Rogers St. Johns claimed that Ann was "...the worst dressed woman I ever saw in my life!".

Her father was Brig. Gen. George Grant Gatley, commander of the U.S. Rainbow Division in France during World War I. Mother Bessie Crabbe Gatley's father was also a military man. She had an older sister named Edith.

Following her death, she was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) in Los Angeles, California, in the Court of Remembrance.

She was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for motion pictures at 6201 Hollywood Boulevard and for television at 6850 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

Attended and graduated from East Orange High School in East Orange, New Jersey.

Her daughter Jane was born in 1928 and died in December 2005. She had another daughter, Grace Kaye Janssen, with her second husband.

Was the leading lady of Robert Montgomery in two films - When Ladies Meet (1933) and Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935).