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 (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933)), 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 (1997).