Editing Claudette Colbert (section)

==Personal life==
In 1928, Colbert married actor and director Norman Foster, with whom she co-starred in the Broadway show ''The Barker''. Their marriage remained a secret for many years while they lived in separate homes.<ref name="tcmdb">{{cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/36555%7C32817/Claudette-Colbert|title=Claudette Colbert profile|access-date=February 9, 2013|work=TCM}}</ref>

In Los Angeles, Colbert shared a home with her mother, Jeanne Chauchoin,<ref>{{cite web|title=Claudette Colbert Q&A Pt. 3|author=Andre Soares|work=Alt Film Guide|url=http://www.altfg.com/blog/movie/claudette-colbert-lesbian-the-two-mrs-grenvilles|date=August 12, 2011}}</ref> who disliked Foster and reputedly did not allow him into the home.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/10/03/ST2008100302864.html|title=Star Light, Star Bright|first=John|last=DiLeo|date=October 5, 2008|page=BW08|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=October 8, 2008}}</ref> Colbert and Foster divorced in 1935 in Mexico.<ref name="tcmdb" />
[[File:Claudette Colbert & Mother.jpg|thumb|left|Colbert and her mother, Jeanne, in early 1930s]]
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 [[David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA|UCLA Medical School]]. She gave Pressman a [[Beechcraft]] airplane as a present. They purchased a ranch in northern California,<ref name="A Perfect Star" /> where Colbert enjoyed horseback riding<ref>Dick, Bernard F. (2008). "Chapter 12. The Last Picture Show". Claudette Colbert: She Walked in Beauty. University Press of Mississippi</ref> and her husband kept [[show cattle]]. During this time, Colbert drove a [[Lincoln Continental]] and a [[Ford Thunderbird]].<ref name="A Perfect Star" /> The marriage lasted 33 years, until Pressman's death from [[Hepatocellular carcinoma|liver cancer]] in 1968.

Jeanne reportedly envied her daughter,<ref name="A Perfect Star" /> preferred her son's company, and made Colbert's brother Charles serve as his sister's agent. Charles used the surname Wendling, borrowed from Jeanne's paternal grandmother Rose Wendling.<ref name="Lily" /> He served as Colbert's business manager for a time,<ref name="Quirk 5" /> and was credited with negotiating some of her more lucrative contracts in the late 1930s and early 1940s.<ref name="Shipman117" /><ref name="Lily" /> In 1942, Charles enlisted to take part in World War Two. Colbert's uncle Charles Loew died in 1953, and her aunt Emily Loew in 1954.<ref>{{cite book|title=Claudette Colbert: She Walked in Beauty|year=2008|first=Bernard F.|last=Dick | publisher=University Press of Mississippi|page=61}}</ref>

Although virtually retired from motion pictures since the mid-1950s, Colbert continued to maintain an upscale lifestyle. She had a country house in [[Palm Springs]] for weekends. An advertising executive said, "Claudette was extravagant; I never, ever saw her question the price of anything." In 1963, Colbert sold her a [[Lloyd Wright]]-designed residence in [[Holmby Hills]], and she and Dr. Pressman rented a small house in Beverly Hills.<ref name="A Perfect Star" />

In 1958, she met Verna Hull, a wealthy painter, photographer, and the stepdaughter of a [[Sears Roebuck]] heiress. They had a nine-year friendship that included travel, and an interest in art, and they rented twin New York penthouses. When Colbert bought a house in Barbados in the early 1960s, Hull bought a house next door, amid rumors that their friendship was a romantic one, which Colbert denied.<ref name="A Perfect Star" /> The friendship ended after an argument that took place as Colbert's husband lay dying, during which Hull insisted that Pressman would not only take his own life, but Colbert's as well, rather than die alone.<ref name="A Perfect Star" /> Pressman died on February 26, 1968.<ref name="A Perfect Star" />

[[File:CLAUDETTE COLBERT 1977.jpg|thumb|left|upright|at party in Dorothy Shaver Award Nov. 9, 1977, New York City]]

Colbert was a lifelong [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Granger|first=Derek|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-claudette-colbert-1307788.html|title=Obituary: Claudette Colbert|work=The Independent|location=London|date=August 2, 1996|access-date=January 28, 2019}}</ref>

===Final years and death===
For years, Colbert divided her time between her Manhattan apartment and her vacation home in [[Speightstown]], [[Barbados]].<ref name="Pace1996" /> The latter, purchased from a British gentleman and nicknamed Bellerive, was the island's only plantation house fronting the beach.<ref name="A Perfect Star"/> Her permanent address remained Manhattan.

When her mother Jeanne died in 1970,<ref name="tcmdb" /> and her brother Charles in 1971, Colbert's only surviving relative was her brother's daughter, Coco Lewis.<ref name="Obituary">{{cite news |title=Oscar-Winner Claudette Colbert dead at 92|work=Tributes.com|url=http://www.tributes.com/show/Claudette-Colbert-83730381|access-date=February 20, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|title=A Perfect Star|date=January 1998|magazine=Vanity Fair|author=Amy Fine Collins}}</ref>

Colbert suffered a series of small strokes during the last three years of her life. She died in 1996 in Barbados,<ref name="Pace1996" /> where she had employed a housekeeper and two cooks. She was 92. Her remains were transported to New York City for cremation and funeral services.<ref name="A Perfect Star" />

A [[requiem mass]] was later held at [[Church of St. Vincent Ferrer (Manhattan)|Church of St. Vincent Ferrer]] in Manhattan.<ref name="Envoi">{{cite book|title=Claudette Colbert: She Walked in Beauty|year=2008|first=Bernard F.|last=Dick|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|chapter=Chapter 17. Envoi}}</ref> Her ashes are laid to rest in the Godings Bay Church Cemetery, Speightstown, [[Saint Peter, Barbados]], alongside her mother and second husband.<ref name="A Perfect Star" />

Colbert never had children. She left most of her estate, estimated at $3.5&nbsp;million and including her Manhattan apartment and Bellerive, to longtime friend Helen O'Hagan, a retired director of corporate relations at [[Saks Fifth Avenue]]. Colbert had met O'Hagan in 1961 on the set of ''[[Parrish (film)|Parrish]]'', her last film,<ref>Stephanie Harvin, "O'Hagan, a Legend at Saks", Post and Courier, August 23, 1996</ref><ref>"Colbert's Will Provides for Long-Time Friends", ''Austin American-Statesman'', August 10, 1996, p. B12</ref> and they became best friends around 1970.<ref name="tcmdb"/>

After Pressman's death, Colbert instructed her friends to treat O'Hagan as they had Pressman, "as her spouse".<ref name=mann>{{cite book|last=Mann|first=William J.|title=Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910–1969|year=2001|publisher=Viking|location=New York|isbn=0670030171|pages=[https://archive.org/details/behindscreenhowg00mann/page/81 81–82]|url=https://archive.org/details/behindscreenhowg00mann/page/81}}</ref> Although O'Hagan was financially comfortable without the generous bequest, Bellerive was sold for over $2&nbsp;million to [[David Geffen]]. Colbert's will also left $150,000 to her niece Coco Lewis; a trust of over $100,000 to UCLA, in Pressman's memory; and $75,000 to Marie Corbin, her Bajan housekeeper.<ref name="A Perfect Star"/>