Gertrude Short
actress
- Birth name:
- Carmen Gertrude Short
- Born:
- 1902-04-06, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
- Died:
- 1968-07-31, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Professions:
- actress
Biography
Gertrude Short’s life sounded like the ring of a switchboard from the start. Daughter of silent-era character man Lew Short and younger sister to actress Florence, she spent her childhood backstage before charging into vaudeville herself. Five whirlwind seasons on the circuits honed her comic timing; Broadway then beckoned, and in 1922 she followed the footlights west to Hollywood. Between 1924 and 1925, Short starred in a brisk run of “Telephone Girl” two-reelers, all overseen by her director-and-spouse Scott Pembroke. Audiences loved her brisk, gum-cracking hello, so producers kept her perched at switchboards long after talkies arrived—her final on-screen credit, nearly two decades later, is still a cord-pulling cameo in Week-End at the Waldorf (1945). When the world went to war, Gertrude traded studio stages for factory floors, spending the rest of the conflict and beyond riveting aircraft at Lockheed. She punched her last timecard there in 1967, hanging up her headset for good.
