Lorreta Young

Gretchen Young was born on January 6, 1913 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was the daughter of Gladys Royal Young and John Earl Young. When she was three,
her parents separated and her mother moved Gretchen and her two sisters to California and into the home of Gladys' sister.
Loretta's father later moved to join them. Gladys later found him with the maid and told him to get out. His children never saw him again. The family moved to a boarding house that Gladys ran.
Around that time Loretta and her cousin went to live with actress Mae Murray, whom they called "Aunt Mazi". After a year, they both returned to their mothers.
When Loretta was 10, her mother married one of her boarders, George Belzer. They had daughter Georgianna two years later.
When Lorreta Young was three years old, her mother took her and her sisters to Hollywood, where she established a boarding house.
Gretchen was appearing on screen as a child extra by the time she was four, joining her elder sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (later better known as Sally Blane), as child players.
Gretchen then left the screen to attend convent school, but returned at age 14 with a bit appearance in the Colleen Moore vehicle Naughty But Nice (1927).
Changing her name to Loretta Young, letting her blond hair revert to its natural brown and with her blue eyes, satin complexion and exquisite face, she quickly graduated from bit player to ingénue to leading lady.
She made headlines in 1930 when she and Grant Withers, who was previously married and nine years her senior, eloped to Yuma, Arizona, with the 17-year-old Loretta. They had both appeared in Warner Bros.' The Second Floor Mystery (1930).
The marriage was annulled in 1931, the same year in which the pair would again co-star on screen in a film ironically titled Too Young to Marry (1931).
Loretta always showed an elegant sort of beauty in her films, many of which were rather pedestrian fare. Yet she could act if called upon. Examples of her acting ability are her performances in The Farmer's Daughter (1947) or in Come to the Stable (1949).
She retired from films in 1953 and began a second, equally successful career as hostess of "Letter to Loretta" (1953), a half-hour drama anthology series which ran on NBC from September 1953 to September 1961.
In addition to hosting the series, she frequently starred in episodes.
Although she is most remembered for her stunning gowns and swirling entrances, over the broadcast's eight-year run she also showed again that she could act. She won Emmy awards for best actress in a dramatic series in 1954, 1956 and 1958.