Loretta Young: The Crushing Pressure of a Public Image

A prominent jewel of early Hollywood, now lost to time, known for her ethereal beauty and devout religious ideals. It wasn’t until she and her daughter, Judy Lewis, passed that a decades kept secret that shocked the masses would be unearthed.

Loretta Young was born on January 6th of 1913 in Salt Lake City, Utah under the name Gretchen Michaela Young.

By the time she was just three-years-old, her parents had separated from each other, moving Loretta and her two older sisters to Southern California with their mother.

Young's first step into the spotlight is contested, with her IMDb cited her to begin at the age of just four-years-old while Wikipedia says she started at three. A deep dive into Young's life by Chris Whiteley, for Hollywood's Golden Age claims she was first filmed as a baby in the silent production of, 'The Only Way' in 1914.

Regardless of her beginnings, Young grew to be an accomplished, well-known actor by 14, as she snagged the lead role in 'Laugh Clown Laugh' with Lon Chaney in 1929. She continued to work steadily and build her star status from the end of the silent era, making a smooth transition to early talkies.

Critics and interviewers who interacted with Young over the years claimed her to be a sweet, kind woman with a focus on her family and religion.

Loretta was often described as being a devout Catholic woman, who's convictions deeply impacted the way she chose to live her life.

The graceful and enchanting Loretta Young had many great romances in her life, being known for her infatuation with her current film's 'leading man.'

Young was touted for her roll as the sweet female protagonist time and time again, in such classics as, 'Platinum Blonde,' 'A Man's Castle,' and many more. In 1930, when she was just seventeen, Young made headlines for her elopement to Grant Withers, her co-star in 'The Second Floor Mystery.'

Sadly, the romance was not one to last, as the marriage was annulled the following year. This ironically coincided with the release of their second onscreen pairing, Too Young to Marry (1931).

Despite her public image, following the separation from Withers, Young became enamored with the man starring alongside her just two years later, Spencer Tracy. 1933's 'A Man's Castle,' was perhaps more known for the illicit public affair between Tracy and Young than the movie itself.

Tracy was married to Louise Treadwell, but identified as a deeply Catholic man himself. Reports during this time would spot Tracy and Young attending mass together and visiting confessionals when not shooting for the film.

But it was also their faith that caused the relationship to end after about a year. Tracy refused divorce Treadwell and Young wouldn’t have married a divorced man.

Despite the end of the relationship, both claim each other to still hold significant value in their own lives. During a final letter to Tracy, Loretta had written of her love for not only him but for God as well.

It's quoted that Young wrote, "it will be impossible for us to see each other again unless we can truthfully and honestly be a good girl and a good boy."

Spencer kept this letter until the day he died.

Despite this, Spencer Tracy would go on to have a long-term partnership with Katharine Hepburn, but the press disapproved of this illicit affair and the two eventually broke up in 1934.

But that wasn't the end of Young's scandalous romances, as forlorn love seemed to chase the starlet wherever she turned.

Following the Tracy scandal, Loretta found herself changing agencies, leaving First National Studios for rival Fox. Her first movie under the change was 1935's 'Call of the Wild,' working alongside one of Hollywood's most notable male leading actors for the time, Clark Gable.

During the time of filming, rumors spiraled through the tabloids that the married Gabel and Young were having an affair.

Fuel would only be added to the fire when Loretta Young would take a 11 month long break after starting in just one more film.

While many gossip columns pointed fingers at Loretta being pregnant, the starlet spoke out, saying she was fatigues from the years of back-to-back filming.

Young would only star in one movie in 1936, before taking a two year long break, by far the longest she had gone without acting since entering into Hollywood.

The public would only learn the truth after her death in 2000, when an approved biography titled 'Forever Young,' would explain the true tragedies Young faced in her life.

In it, the star describes discovering she was pregnant on the set of, 'The Call of the Wild,' and knowing that she was powerless to her situation. As a devout Catholic, an abortion was out of the question. However, as a star in the 30's, Young knew that a scandal such as a child out of wedlock to a married man would ruin her career.

Her solution was to give birth to her daughter, Judy Lewis, in secret and give her up for adoption shortly after. Judy recalls being bounced around the system for 11 months before being adopted by Loretta Young.

Under the ruse that Lewis was an adopted daughter, Young was able to uphold her public image and remain true to her religion and family.

In 2020, Loretta's son Christopher Lewis sat down for an interview concerning the true character of his mother.

For years, people surrounded the scandal of Clark Gable and Loretta Young's relationship. Christopher's wife, Linda, reported that between a conversation with Loretta, she admitted that her relations with Gable were not consensual.

Many, including Loretta herself, thought that the affair was torrid, yes, but something the two of them both wanted at the end of the day. It wasn't until Young was nearly in her 80's, watching a Larry King special when she learned of the term 'date rape.'

Yet, despite the trails and tribulations of surviving Early Hollywood, Young still had a giving, loving heart according to her son. He's quoted by Hometowns to Hollywood as saying,

"She was an incredible person. She could be very insistent business-wise of wanting to do it right and so people kind of took that as being kind of a diva but, believe me, she was not in personal life. She was not. She was generous and she didn’t really crave attention for doing her charity stuff. She did that all quietly—never by photographers or anything."

At the end of it all, Loretta was still dedicated to what mattered to her the most: her relationship with God and her love for her children.