ZaSu Pitts (;

In 1903, when Pitts was nine years old, her family moved to Santa Cruz, California, to seek 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. Based on her performance, von Stroheim labeled ZaSu Pitts "the greatest dramatic actress." He also featured her in his films The Honeymoon (1928), The Wedding March (1928), and Walking Down Broadway. Pitts's performance in Walking Down Broadway was dramatic, with her character showing a repressed romantic interest in her girlfriend; the studio reshot these scenes with Pitts, now playing the girlfriend's companion for laughs, and von Stroheim's directorial credit was removed from the film. The film was finally released in 1933, much changed, as Hello, Sister!.

ZaSu Pitts was so recognizable in comedies that the public did not take her dramatic efforts seriously. In the classic war drama All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Pitts was cast as the distraught mother of a young soldier, played by Lew Ayres, but at preview screenings her intense performance drew unintentional laughs. Her scenes were refilmed with Beryl Mercer. In 1936 RKO needed a replacement actress for its Hildegarde Withers series of murder mysteries; Edna May Oliver had left the studio and Helen Broderick succeeded Oliver in the role. Pitts was chosen to succeed Broderick. In theory, it was a good idea: Pitts seemed to fit the role of a prim, spinster schoolmistress. However, mystery fans did not accept the fluttery Pitts as a brainy sleuth who matched wits with the police, and after her two Withers films the series was abandoned.

In 1944, Pitts tackled Broadway, making her debut in the mystery Ramshackle Inn. The play, written expressly for her, did well, and she took the show on the road in later years. She was also a familiar attraction in summer stock theater, playing annually in the Norma Mitchell play Post Road.

Postwar movies and television

Postwar films continued to give her 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 television. This culminated in her best-known series role, playing second banana to Gale Storm in ABC's The Gale Storm Show (1956) (also known as Oh, Susanna), in the role of Elvira Nugent ("Nugie"), the shipboard beautician. In 1961, Pitts was cast opposite Earle Hodgins in the episode "Lonesome's Gal" of the ABC sitcom Guestward, Ho!, set on a dude ranch in New Mexico. In 1962, she appeared in an episode of CBS's Perry Mason, "The Case of the Absent Artist". Her final role was as Gertie, the switchboard operator in the Stanley Kramer comedy epic It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

Personal life

thumb|Pitts and husband John Woodall circa 1935

Pitts was married to actor Thomas Sarsfield Gallery from 1920 until their 1933 divorce. Gallery became a Los Angeles boxing promoter and later a TV executive. The couple had two children:

  • ZaSu Ann Gallery
  • Donald Michael "Sonny" Gallery (born Marvin Carville La Marr), whom they adopted and renamed after the 1926 death of Donald's biological mother (and Pitts's friend), actress Barbara La Marr.

In 1933, Pitts married John Edward "Eddie" Woodall, with whom she remained until her death.

Declining health dominated Pitts's later years, particularly after she was diagnosed with cancer in the mid-1950s. She continued to work, appearing on TV and making brief appearances in the films The Thrill of It All and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

She died in Hollywood on June 7, 1963, aged 69, and was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.

Legacy

thumb|left|[[Trailer (promotion)|Trailer for Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)]]

ZaSu Pitts was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960, for her contribution to motion pictures.

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Sources

  • Photographs and literature