Kathleen Howard

Kathleen Howard
Born	(1884-07-27)July 27, 1884 Clifton, 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.

Early years

Howard was born in Buffalo, New York, and spent her childhood there.

Career

Opera

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.

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

Film

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

Book

She told of her life as an opera singer in an autobiography, Confessions of an Opera Singer, which was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1916.

Magazine

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

Death

Howard died on April 15, 1956, aged 71, of undisclosed causes, in Hollywood, California. She is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York.

Legacy

Howard appears to have not made as many opera recordings for companies of the acoustical era such as did her contemporaries Geraldine Farrar and Mary Garden; her few recordings were vertical-cut discs made 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).

Selected filmography

Film
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1934	Death Takes a Holiday	Princess Maria
	You're Telling Me!	Mrs. Edward Quimby Murchison
	It's a Gift	Mrs. Amelia Bissonette	Starring W.C. Fields
	One More River	Lady Charwell
	Once to Every Bachelor	Aunt Henrietta
1935	Man on the Flying Trapeze	Leona Wolfinger	Alternative title: The Memory Expert
1937	Stolen Holiday	Madame Delphine
1939	First Love	Miss Wiggins
	Little Accident	Mrs. Allerton
1940	Young People	Hester Appleby
	Mystery Sea Raider	Maggie Clancy
	Five Little Peppers in Trouble	Mrs. Wilcox
1941	Blossoms in the Dust	Mrs. Sarah Keats
	Ball of Fire	Miss Bragg	Alternative title: The Professor and the Burlesque Queen
	Miss Polly	Mrs. Minerva Snodgrass
	Sweetheart of the Campus	Mrs. Minnie Lambeth Sparr
	A Girl, a Guy and a Gob	Jawme Duncan
1942	Take a Letter, Darling	Aunt Minnie	Alternative title: Green-Eyed Woman
	You Were Never Lovelier	Grandmother Acuña	Uncredited
	The Mad Martindales	Grandmother Varney
1943	My Kingdom for a Cook	Mrs. Theodore Carter	Uncredited
	Swing Out the Blues	Aunt Amanda
1944	Laura	Louise, Ann's Cook	Uncredited
	Reckless Age	Sarah Wadsworth
1945	Eadie Was a Lady	Aunt Priscilla
	Snafu	Dean Garrett
	Shady Lady	Butch
1946	Centennial Summer	Deborah
	Danger Woman	Eddie
	Mysterious Intruder	Rose Denning
1947	The Late George Apley	Margaret, the Maid	Uncredited
	Cynthia	McQuillan
1948	The Bride Goes Wild	Aunt Susan
1950	Born to Be Bad	Mrs. Bolton
Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1951	The Bigelow Theatre		1 episode

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
• Kathleen Howard at Find a Grave