Career Highlights: The Seventh Victim, Marked Woman, Counsellor-At-Law
First Major Screen Credit: Counsellor-At-Law (1933)
Biography
Born and raised on a Wyoming ranch, American actress Isabel Jewell would only rarely be called upon to play a "Western" type during her career. For the most part, Isabel -- who made her screen debut in Blessed Event (1932) -- was typecast as a gum-chewing, brassy urban blonde, or as an empty-headed gun moll. Jewell's three best remembered film performances were in Tale of Two Cities (1935), where she was atypically cast as the pathetic seamstress who is sentenced to the guillotine; Lost Horizon (1937), as the consumptive prostitute who finds a new lease on life when she is whisked away to the land of Shangri-La; and Gone with the Wind (1939), where she appears briefly as "poor white trash" Emmy Slattery. In 1946, Isabel finally got to show off the riding skills she'd accumulated in her youth in Wyoming when she was cast as female gunslinger Belle Starr in Badman's Territory. Denied starring roles because of her height (she was well under five feet), Isabel Jewell worked as a supporting player in films until the '50s and in television until the '60s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Born in Shoshoni, Fremont County, Wyoming, Jewell was a Broadway actress who achieved immediate success and glowing critical reviews in two productions, Up Pops the Devil (1930) and Blessed Event (1932).
She was brought to Hollywood for the film version of the latter, by Warner. Jewell appeared in a variety of supporting roles during the early 1930s. She played stereotypical gangster's women in such films as Manhattan Melodrama (1934) and Marked Woman (1937).
She was well received playing against type, as a seamstress sentenced to death on the guillotine, in A Tale of Two Cities (1935).
Jewell's films included Gone with the Wind (1939) in the role of "that white trash, Emmy Slattery", Northwest Passage (1940), High Sierra (1941), and the low budget The Leopard Man (1943). By the end of the 1940s, her roles had reduced in significance to the degree that her performances were often uncredited, e.g. Men in White (1934 – scenes deleted).
By the end of her career, Jewell had appeared in more than one hundred films, between 1930 and 1971. She also performed in radio dramas in the 1950s, including This is Your FBI.
Isabel Jewell played opposite Edie Sedgwick in her biographical/drama CIAO, Manhattan, adapted by David Weismann. This was shortly before the death of both actresses.
Her final film was the b movie Sweet Kill, the directorial debut of future Academy Award winner Curtis Hanson.