Gloria Stuart was born in Santa Monica, California, did some acting while in college at the University of California at Berkeley and later worked on stage in little theater productions. Universal enticed the glamourous blond actress with the assurance of "big plans", but outside of her films for director James Whale (The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man and The Kiss Before the Mirror), that promise went unkept as the studio stuck her in a long series of unmemorable program pictures. After a stint at 20th Century-Fox turned out the same way, Stuart went back to the stage and then (in the mid-'40s) retired from acting. Since then, she has taken up painting and has had one-woman shows in New York, Austria and Italy. In the 1970s, she returned to acting. Widowed since 1978 (her husband was screenwriter Arthur Sheekman ), she was Oscar-nominated for her performance as the 100-year-old survivor of the sinking of the Titanic.
Titanic (1997): $10,000/week
Street of Women (1932): $125/week

Oldest person ever to be nominated for an Academy Award [10 February 1998] Appeared in Hanson's music video "River" [1998] Chosen by People Magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. [1998] Founding member of the Screen Actors Guild Daughter, with Sheekman, Sylvia She was the only cast member on the set of Titanic who was living at the time of the actual disaster. Titanic was her second film that featured a doomed ship. One of her early film, Here Comes the Navy, was filmed aboard the USS Arizona. Mother-in-law of TV writer Gene Thompson. Shortened her last name from "Stewart" to "Stuart" because she thought its six letters balanced perfectly on a theater's marquee with the six letters in "Gloria". Graduated at Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California, in 1927. Her daughter, Sylvia Sheekman Thompson, born June 19, 1935, was a cookbook author Father's name was Fred Finch. Following her husband's death she engaged in a decade-long relationship with printer Ward Ritchie, born in 1904. They first met 1930 when he was a best friend of first husband, sculptor Blair Gordon Newell. The two reacquainted in March 1983 and lived together until his death in 1996. Turned down Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) as she felt that the material was not to her dramatic acting abilities , however Darryl F. Zanuck forced her to do the picture, and explained that she would be seen by millions, due to Shirley Temple's popularity. Miss Stuart conceded and agreed in a 1998 interview that Mr Zanuck was certainly correct. Second wife of screenwriter Arthur Sheekman