- Born
- Died
- Birth nameLillian Gertrude Michael
- Height5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
- Gertrude Michael was born in Talladega, Alabama, on June 1, 1911. After graduating from high school, she appeared on radio, as a musician and "Home Arts" advisor. A piano prodigy, she dropped out of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at age 18 to pursue acting. It was in Cincinnati, in 1929, that she made her stage debut in a stock company headed by Stuart Walker. She subsequently appeared on Broadway in Rachel Crothers's "Caught Wet" (1931). She entered the movies playing Richard Arlen's fiancée in Wayward (1932). Arguably her best remembered role is the jealous "Rita Ross" of Murder at the Vanities (1934). She died in Hollywood on December 31, 1964, having never married. She was interred at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory, Los Angeles, California.
- IMDb mini biography by: dmathuri@megsinet.net
- Had a love-affair with hard-boiled short story writer Paul Cain, who wrote for the screen under the pseudonym Peter Ruric. After they broke up, Cain wrote about her in the only novel of his published during his lifetime, "Fast One." Both Gertrude and Cain were alcoholics, and in the novel published several years later after they called it quits, she was the inspiration for the dipsomaniac lover, Granquist.
- One of the six "Paramount Proteges" of 1935. The others were Wendy Barrie, Grace Bradley, Katherine DeMille, Gail Patrick, and Ann Sheridan.
- Graduated high school at 14. She played piano and violin.
- Had two older brothers, Arnold and Alan.
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