Ann Harding

Ann Harding was an American actress who worked in theater, film, radio, and television. Born in Fort Sam Houston and raised in East Orange, New Jersey, she took up acting in school drama classes and chose a stage name for her career. After working as a script reader, she reached Broadway in 1921 in Like a King and spent the 1920s on Broadway and on tour. She moved to California in the late 1920s and made her film debut in Paris Bound in 1929. With talking pictures, her stage-trained diction helped her become a leading lady. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in 1931 for Holiday. Her notable films included The Animal Kingdom, Peter Ibbetson, Eyes in the Night, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), and It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947). She made occasional television appearances from 1955 to 1965 and returned to the stage in the early 1960s before retiring in 1965.