With her Mid-Atlantic accent,[3] versatility, witty dialogues, aristocratic demeanor, and flair[4] for light comedy and emotional drama, Colbert became one of the most popular stars of the 1930s and 1940s.

[2][7][1] Although christened "Émilie", she was called "Lily" after Jersey-born actress Lillie Langtry,[8] and because an unmarried aunt of the same name—her maternal grandmother's adopted child, Emily Loew—was living with the family.

Jeanne held various occupations, while Georges owned pastry and bonbon shops, and was also a major stockholder of an ink factory in which he suffered business setbacks.

In 1921, Colbert made her stage debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in revivals of Rostetter's The Widow's Veil and Aria da Capo by Edna St. Vincent Millay, at the age of 17.

In 1924 the actor Leslie Howard met her, was impressed by her ability to speak with both Mid-Atlantic and British accents, and contacted the producer Al Woods to cast her in Frederick Lonsdale's The Fake, but she was replaced by Frieda Inescort before it opened.

[20] In 1930, she starred opposite Maurice Chevalier in The Big Pond, which was filmed in both English and French for release in their respective markets as was common during the early sound era.

With her first husband Norman Foster she co-starred in the film Young Man of Manhattan (1930), for which he received negative reviews as one of her weakest leading men.

[25] She was paired with March again in Honor Among Lovers (1931), which was popular at that time;[26] he was also originally cast as her co-star in His Woman (1931), but was replaced by Gary Cooper.

[27] Colbert also starred in Mysterious Mr. Parkes (1931), a French-language version of Slightly Scarlet for the European market, although her French was tinged with an English accent after American life.

She sang and played piano/violin in the Ernst Lubitsch musical The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture as well as being a box-office hit and critical success.

[2][28] Colbert's career got a further boost when she played the supporting role as femme fatale Poppaea in Cecil B. DeMille's historical epic The Sign of the Cross (1932), opposite Fredric March and Charles Laughton.

[33] Her musical voice, a contralto that footnotes list as being coached by Bing Crosby, was also featured in Torch Singer (1933),[34] co-starring Ricardo Cortez and David Manners.

[45] In 1937 and 1938, she was listed as the fourteenth and sixth (respectively) top money-making woman in the U.S.[4] Colbert spent the rest of the 1930s deftly alternating between romantic comedies and dramas: She Married Her Boss (1935) with Melvyn Douglas; The Gilded Lily (1935) and The Bride Comes Home (1935), both with Fred MacMurray; Under Two Flags (1936) with Ronald Colman; Zaza (1939) with Herbert Marshall; and It's a Wonderful World (1939) with James Stewart.

[46] One columnist wrote that Colbert placed her career "ahead of everything, save possibly her marriage", and that she had a strong sense of what was best for her, and a "deep-rooted desire to be in shape, efficient, and under control".

[53] Midnight (1939) with Don Ameche, directed by Mitchell Leisen and written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, was one of her best comedy films.

[43] As a supporting role, Colbert co-starred with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy in Boom Town, released by MGM in 1940 and was the highest-grossing picture of the year in the United States.

Preston Sturges' mature The Palm Beach Story (1942) had been accepted some re-evaluation over the years as a comedic classic,[61] where she did one of the best performances of her film career,[62] which featured such a thing as beauty that speaks of intelligence.

[69] Tomorrow is Forever and The Secret Heart (also 1946) were also substantial commercial successes,[23] and Colbert's popularity during 1947 led her to place 9th in Quigley's "Top Ten Money-Making Stars Poll".

[41] She achieved great success opposite Fred MacMurray in the comedy The Egg and I (1947), which was the year's second-highest grossing picture, and later acknowledged as the 12th-most profitable American film of the 1940s.

[71] The romantic comedy Bride for Sale (1949), wherein Colbert played part of a love triangle that included George Brent and Robert Young, was well-reviewed.

[73] While Colbert still looked like a young woman,[11] she found it difficult making the transition to playing more mature characters as she entered middle age.

[77] In the show's 1960 episode "So Young the Savage Land", she played Beth Brayden, who becomes disillusioned with her rancher-husband Jim (John Dehner) when he turns to violence to protect their property.

The film was a commercial success,[79] but Colbert received little attention, and she directed her agent to end any further attempts to generate interest in her as a TV actress.

[81] Colbert made successful Broadway appearances in The Irregular Verb to Love (1963); in The Kingfisher (1978), with co-star Rex Harrison; and in Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All?

"[2] She appeared in a supporting role in the television miniseries The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987), which was a ratings success, and for which she won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy Award.

"[82] Modern critics have pointed out that Colbert had a unique set of assets—her heart-shaped face, distinct facial features,[4] curly hair,[2] aristocratic manner, relaxed acting, little mysterious, and intelligent style,[83]—that distinguishes her from other classic cinema stars through the 1930s and 1940s.

[4] On Christmas Eve, 1935, in Yuma, Arizona, Colbert married Dr. Joel Pressman, who eventually became a professor and chief of the head and neck surgery department of UCLA Medical School.

Jeanne reportedly envied her daughter,[11] preferred her son's company, and made Colbert's brother Charles serve as his sister's agent.

[91] Her ashes are laid to rest in the Godings Bay Church Cemetery, Speightstown, Saint Peter, Barbados, alongside her mother and second husband.

She left most of her estate, estimated at $3.5 million and including her Manhattan apartment and Bellerive, to longtime friend Helen O'Hagan, a retired director of corporate relations at Saks Fifth Avenue.