Andrea Leeds

As Andrea Leeds she played her first substantial role in the film Come and Get It (1936) and achieved another success with her next film It Could Happen to You (1937).

As part of an ensemble cast that included Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers and Lucille Ball, Leeds was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as an aspiring actress in Stage Door (1937). She read for the role of Melanie in Gone with the Wind, however the role was given to Olivia de Havilland.

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, Youth Takes a Fling (1938) and They Shall Have Music (1939), for the first time playing the lead female role. She continued to play the romantic female lead in an adventure film set in the 1906 Philippines, The Real Glory, opposite Gary Cooper and David Niven, and opposite Don Ameche in the first Technicolor biography of Stephen Foster, Swanee River (1939). Read Less