Biography

Ann, born Dorothy Gatley, spent most of her childhood as an "army brat" constantly moving around before the family finally settled in New York. Ann first appeared on the stage while she spent a year attending Bryn Mawr College. She became a clerk and freelance script reader with a film company before she made her stage debut in Greenwich Village. From there she went to Broadway, and when pictures needed actors who could walk and talk, she went to Hollywood. She was signed by Pathe and made her debut, with Fredric March in Paris Bound (1929). She became a leading lady, and the roles that she played were always the same, but her co-stars changed. She was the gentle, refined heroine as in The Animal Kingdom (1932), wherein she played Daisy, the rejected fiancée of Leslie Howard. By 1933, her popularity started to decline as she appeared in a parade of tearjerkers as someone always ready to sacrifice herself for the good of others. She quit films in 1937 when she married conductor Werner Janssen, but she could not stay away. She came back five years later in Les yeux dans les ténèbres (1942). Her roles after that were mature character roles for the next five years. Another break, another three films, and then in 1956 she appeared once again with Fredric March, the man with whom she started her career in L'homme au complet gris (1956). She continued to appear sporadically on TV in the 1960s and died at age 79 in 1981.

- IMDb mini biography by: Tony Fontana <tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>

Ann Harding was born Dorothy Walton Gatley on August 7, 1901, in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The daughter of an Army captain and his wife, Ann spent a lot of time traveling around the US whenever her West Point-educated father was transferred. Moving to such places as Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, Cuba and Pennsylvania made it very hard to put down roots. By the time the family settled in New York, Ann was well out of high school and began work with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., her college education put aside owing to financial difficulties. She already had some stage experience in a couple of productions when she was a high school student in Pennsylvania, but that was as far as it went. She left the insurance company welfare division when she went to work as a reader with the Famous Players-Lasky Co. After attending a play in New York City, Ann discovered that the acting company was holding auditions for a part, and she decided to give it a try. She was asked to come back the next evening and read for a larger part; to her surprise, she won it. She received critical acclaim for her role in "Inheritors" (1921) and decided she would continue her budding career. Her father was less than pleased with Ann's decision, but she felt it was her life and she would decide what was right for her. For the next eight years Ann performed in a variety of stage productions--after all, she was Broadway's bright new star. Ann was signed by Pathe Studios in 1929 and made her film debut as Mary Hutton in Paris Bound (1929), co-starring with Fredric March. Later that year she starred with her husband, Harry Bannister (whom she married in 1926 and divorced in 1932). Her role in Condamné (1929), for which she was loaned out to United Artists, rounded out her work for that year. Back at Pathe she starred in Holiday (1930), the film that solidified her image as an actress. Next up was The Girl of the Golden West (1930), which again had her husband in the second role. Ann was loaned out to Fox to play Lady Isabella in East Lynne (1931). During production her husband would show up on the set and try to tell the director how to run the film. He was finally banned from the set, and it hastened the demise of Ann's marriage to him. In 1932 she appeared in four films: Prestige (1931), Westward Passage (1932), Les conquérants (1932) and The Animal Kingdom (1932). Four more followed in 1933. Ann didn't appear in as many films as a lot of her contemporaries did because she was very careful in choosing the roles she played. She was more concerned with quality than quantity. After appearing in the British-made L'étrange visiteur (1937), Ann took a five-year hiatus from acting, not appearing on-screen until Les yeux dans les ténèbres (1942). After Christmas Eve (1947) in 1947, Ann didn't work for three years, showing up second-billed in Les heures tendres (1950). She followed that with The Unknown Man (1951) but took another five-year break before appearing in Strange Intruder (1956) and L'homme au complet gris (1956), which turned out to be her last big-screen appearance. Ann was far from idle, however, keeping busy with appearances on stage and especially in television in such programs as Kraft Television Theatre (1947), Les accusés (1961), Le Jeune Docteur Kildare (1961) and Ben Casey (1961). On September 1, 1981, Ann died in Sherman Oaks, California. She was 79 years old.

- IMDb mini biography by: Denny Jackson (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous)