
Gertrude Astor
Born November 9, 1887 · Lakewood, Ohio, USA
Gertrude Astor (Born Gertrude Eyster November 9, 1887 – November 9, 1977) was an American motion picture character actress, who began her career playing trombone on a riverboat. Born in Lakewood, Ohio, Astor at the age of 12 ran off and joined a woman's band as a trombone player and toured the states. In New York she left the band to obtain film work and got a job as an extra before her career took off. Astor was a prolific performer, between 1915 and 1962 she appeared in over 250 movies. Her first known credit is in a Biograph short in 1915. She then became a contract player at Universal. A tall, angular and beautiful woman, Astor frequently towered over the leading men of the era; thus, she was most frequently utilized in comedy roles as aristocrats, golddiggers and "heroine's best pal". Her best-known silent appearances were as the visiting stage star in Stage Struck (1925) with Gloria Swanson, as the vamp who plants stolen money on Harry Langdon in The Strong Man (1926), and as Laura LaPlante's wisecracking travelling companion in The Cat and the Canary (1927). Astor worked prolifically at Hal Roach studios with such headliners as Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, and especially Charley Chase. She was also kept busy at Columbia Pictures' short subjects unit. She continued to play bits in feature films throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. She was briefly glimpsed as the first murder victim in the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Scarlet Claw and was among the ranks of dress extras in 1956's Around the World in Eighty Days. Her last appearance was in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In her later years, Astor was a welcome guest at several Sons of the Desert gatherings, and became an honorary member of the Way Out West tent. She died in Woodland Hills, California from a stroke. She is interred in the Abbey of Psalms in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, CA.
Notable Appearances
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All About Eve

Around the World in 80 Days

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

A Star Is Born

The Wolf Man

The Best Years of Our Lives

3 Godfathers

A Place in the Sun

Monsieur Verdoux

The Horse Soldiers

Leave Her to Heaven

Reap the Wild Wind

The Unsinkable Molly Brown

Daddy Long Legs

Moontide

All in a Night's Work

The Women

When Worlds Collide

Deep in My Heart

Two Rode Together

The Tingler

Angel Face

The Best of Everything

The Merry Widow

The Virgin Queen

Dragonwyck

Easy Living

Sergeant Rutledge

The File on Thelma Jordon

The Doctor Takes a Wife

Hold Back the Dawn

The Cat and the Canary

Thunder on the Hill

Scared Stiff

San Francisco

The Doolins of Oklahoma

Wichita

Dust Be My Destiny

Apache Drums

Caged

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter

My Man Godfrey

Here Comes the Band

The Scarlet Claw

Joe Palooka in Winner Take All

The Big Broadcast of 1938

It's in the Air

The Climax

Dick Tracy

Fun on a Weekend

My Dear Secretary

Paula

Sitting Pretty

$1,000 a Touchdown

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Sister Kenny

Woman in Hiding

Wells Fargo

The Delicious Little Devil

A Woman of Affairs

Polly Redhead

Burning Daylight

Chasing Husbands

Scandal Sheet

Montana

Wife Tamers

Untamed

Swingin' on a Rainbow

Through the Back Door

Empty Saddles

Girls of the Big House

The Devil's Hand

Kiki

Bondage

Fort Osage

The Kansan

Ship of Wanted Men

They Never Come Back

Sin Cargo

Honeymoon Limited

Hit of the Show

Tassels in the Air

Great Guy

Bunco Squad

Here Comes Trouble

No More Ladies

Crack-Up

Hollywood

Loot

High Hats and Low Brows

The Female Animal

Come Clean

Five and Ten Cent Annie

The Wife Who Wasn't Wanted

The Ne'er-Do-Well

The Verdict

All's Swell on the Ocean

Weird Woman

Flaming Gold

The Cheerful Fraud

Don Juan's 3 Nights

The Fall of Eve

The Girl Who Won Out

The Taxi Dancer

Wives Never Know

Twin Beds

The Ninety and Nine

The Butter and Egg Man

Calcutta

The Cohens and the Kellys in Paris

Satan in Sables

Beyond the Rocks

The Impossible Mrs. Bellew

Pursued

Idaho

Bad Boy

Postal Inspector

Pretty Smooth

What Am I Bid?

The Gray Ghost

I'll Take Vanilla

Lost Canyon

Bucking Broadway

An Angel Comes To Brooklyn

Northern Frontier

The Price of a Good Time

The Old West

The Ridin' Kid from Powder River

The Girl Who Wouldn't Quit

Be Yourself!

The Devil's Pay Day

Carnival Lady

The Family Group

The Lash of Power

The Boy Friend

The Scarlet Crystal

The Avenging Rider

The Brazen Beauty

In Walked Charley

Wine, Women and Song

Music Man

Dames Ahoy

Again Pioneers

Stocks and Blondes

Behind the Front

The Llano Kid

Flaming Youth

Hell Bound

The Kentucky Derby

Border Brigands

Fight and Win

Rose-Marie

Synthetic Sin

Lightning Lariats

The Chases of Pimple Street

Lorna Doone

Frozen Justice

Guilty Parents

Oh, What a Man!

The Wall Flower

Broadway or Bust

All Over Town

The Strong Man

Rich Relations

The Drunkard

Kentucky Pride

The Concert

Ginsberg the Great

Washee Ironee

While Paris Sleeps

The Lion Man

The Six-Fifty

Misbehaving Husbands

Cheyenne's Pal

Rupert of Hentzau

The Wanters

Two Weeks Off

Folly of Youth

Stage Struck

The Small Bachelor

The Branding Iron

The Irresistible Lover

Secrets

The Wicked Darling

The Country Beyond

The Little Orphan

I Have Lived

Laughing Ladies

Manhattan Monkey Business

Her Mad Bargain

Alice Adams

The Fatal Warning

Occasionally Yours

Skin Deep

Under Two Flags

Dizzy Daddies

Seeing's Believing

The Silent Watcher

Crook's Tour

Tell 'Em Nothing

You Never Know

The Charmer

The Old Soak

The Rescue

Robes of Sin




