Andrea Leeds
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Andrea Leeds (August 14, 1914 – May 21, 1984) was an Oscar-nominated American film actress.
Born Antoinette Lees in Butte, Montana, she began her film career in 1934 playing bit parts and using her given name. As Andrea Leeds she played her first substantial role in the 1936 film Come and Get It and achieved another success with her next film It Could Happen to You (1937).
She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her next role, as an unsuccessful, aspiring actress in Stage Door (1937). As part of a cast of highly regarded actresses including Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball and Eve Arden, Leeds was singled out by many critics and received widespread acclaim. After her film success in Stage Door, Leeds read for the role of Melanie in Gone with the Wind, but didn't get the role, which eventually went to Olivia DeHavilland.
Her wholesome quality led to her being cast in The Goldwyn Follies (1938) playing "Miss Humanity" - a woman considered by a jaded Hollywood executive to represent the ideal American woman. The film was not a success and received poor reviews.
She next appeared in two films opposite Joel McCrea, in Youth Takes a Fling (1938) and They Shall Have Music (1939), for the first time playing the lead female role in films. She continued to play the romantic female lead in the western The Real Glory opposite Gary Cooper and David Niven, and with Don Ameche in the biography of Stephen Foster, Swanee River (1939).
Her final film, Earthbound (1940), was a fantasy murder mystery in which Leeds' character solves the murder of her husband aided by his ghost.
These films were relatively successful and Leeds remained a popular actress, however she had married in 1939 and decided to leave films to devote herself to raising a family. With her husband she became a successful horse breeder, and after his death ran a jewellery business. It was her only marriage, and produced two children, one of whom predeceased her.
Andrea Leeds died from cancer in Palm Springs, California, aged 69. A resident of the city for many years, she is remembered as one of its prominent citizens with a star on their "Walk of Fame".
She was interred in Desert Memorial Park Cemetery in California.
