Kathleen Howard

Kathleen Howard
Born	(1884-07-27)July 27, 1884 Clifton Hill, Ontario, Canada
Died	April 15, 1956(1956-04-15) (aged 71) Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Opera singer, actress, magazine editor
Years active	1934–1951

Kathleen Howard (July 27, 1884 – April 15, 1956) was a Canadian-born American opera singer, magazine editor, and character actress from the mid-1930s through the 1940s.^[1]

Biography

Howard was born in Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada on July 27, 1884.^[2]

In 1906, Howard began her career in opera in Germany. Following eight years of singing in Berlin, she performed concerts in Belgium, England, Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia. She arrived in America in 1913 and joined the Metropolitan Opera in 1916.^[2] She remained a leading Met artist through 1928, taking major and secondary roles.^[3]

Howard created the role of Zita in Giacomo Puccini's Gianni Schicchi at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918. Until World War I, Howard was part of the repertory system in the opera houses of Metz and Darmstadt.

Beginning in 1918, for four years, Howard was the fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar magazine and while in that post was also president of Fashion Group International. She resigned to begin acting in films.

Her film debut came in Death Takes a Holiday (1934).^[2] She played Amelia, the nagging, shrewish wife of W.C. Fields in It's a Gift (1934), and appeared in two other Fields films: You're Telling Me! (1934) and Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935).

Howard died on April 15, 1956, aged 71, in Hollywood, California after a long illness.^[1] She was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York.

Legacy

Howard did not make as many opera recordings during the acoustical era as did her contemporaries Geraldine Farrar and Mary Garden, and thus was not as well known. Her few recordings were vertical-cut discs for Edison Records, playable only on Edison Disc Phonographs; and for the American branch of Pathé Frères in 1918, which received limited distribution. Among them are Harry Burleigh's arrangement of the spiritual "Deep River", arias from Charles Gounod's Faust and Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore (in English), and the "Barcarolle" from Jacques Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann with Claudia Muzio (in French).

Filmography

Film
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1934	Death Takes a Holiday	Princess Maria
	You're Telling Me!	Mrs. Edward Quimby Murchison
	One More River	Lady Charwell
	Once to Every Bachelor	Aunt Henrietta
	Lady by Choice	Mrs. Mills
	It's a Gift	Mrs. Amelia Bissonette	Starring W.C. Fields
1935	Man on the Flying Trapeze	Leona Wolfinger	Alternative title: The Memory Expert
1937	Stolen Holiday	Madame Delphine
	The Hit Parade	Mrs. Barrett	Uncredited
1938	When G-Men Step In	Mrs. Drake	Uncredited
	Letter of Introduction	Aunt Jonnie in Play	Uncredited
	Crime Takes a Holiday	Mrs. Allen, Governor's Wife	Uncredited
1939	Three Smart Girls Grow Up	Mrs. Kittenhaven	Uncredited
	Rio	Mme. Adrienne Lamartine	Uncredited
	Little Accident	Mrs. Allerton
	First Love	Miss Wiggins
1940	Outside the Three-Mile Limit	Socialite	Uncredited
	Mystery Sea Raider	Maggie Clancy
	Young People	Hester Appleby
	Five Little Peppers in Trouble	Mrs. Wilcox
	One Night in the Tropics	Judge McCracken	Uncredited
1941	A Girl, a Guy and a Gob	Jawme Duncan
	Sweetheart of the Campus	Mrs. Minnie Lambeth Sparr
	Blossoms in the Dust	Mrs. Sarah Keats
	Miss Polly	Mrs. Minerva Snodgrass
	Ball of Fire	Miss Bragg	Alternative title: The Professor and the Burlesque Queen
1942	Take a Letter, Darling	Aunt Minnie	Alternative title: Green-Eyed Woman
	The Mad Martindales	Grandmother Varney
	Lady in a Jam	Woman	Uncredited
	The Magnificent Dope	Tad's Mother, Mrs. Page	Uncredited
	You Were Never Lovelier	Grandmother Acuña	Uncredited
1943	Crash Dive	Miss Bromley	Uncredited
	My Kingdom for a Cook	Mrs. Theodore Carter	Uncredited
	Swing Out the Blues	Aunt Amanda
1944	Reckless Age	Sarah Wadsworth
	Laura	Louise, Ann's Cook	Uncredited
1945	Eadie Was a Lady	Aunt Priscilla
	Shady Lady	Butch
	Snafu	Dean Garrett
1946	Miss Susie Slagle's	Miss Wingate	Uncredited
	Mysterious Intruder	Rose Denning
	Centennial Summer	Deborah
	Danger Woman	Eddie
1947	Cross My Heart	Mrs. Klute	Uncredited
	The Late George Apley	Margaret, the Maid	Uncredited
	Cynthia	McQuillan
	The Hal Roach Comedy Carnival	Aunt Martha, in 'Curly'
1948	The Bride Goes Wild	Aunt Susan
	Cry of the City	Miss Pruett's Mother	Uncredited
1950	The Petty Girl	Prof. Langton	Uncredited
	Born to Be Bad	Mrs. Bolton

Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1951	The Bigelow Theatre		1 episode

References

1. "Miss Howard, 77, Singer, Actress. Former Contralto At 'Met' Dies. Film Player Was Fashion Editor Here". New York Times. August 17, 1956.
2. "Fashion Magazine Editor Turns to Motion Pictures". The Evening Independent. February 23, 1934. p. 4-A. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
3. "Metropolitan Opera Association". Metropolitan Opera Archives.

External links

• Works by Kathleen Howard at Project Gutenberg
  • Confessions of an Opera Singer freely available at gutenberg.org in many formats.
• Works by or about Kathleen Howard at the Internet Archive
• Kathleen Howard at IMDb