Ellen Miriam Hopkins was born into a wealthy family in Savannah, Georgia, on October 18, 1902. She was able to attend the finest educational institutions, including Goddard Seminary in Plainfield, Vermont, and Syracuse University in New York State.
Miriam studied dance in New York and received her first taste of show business as a chorus girl at the age of twenty. She appeared in local musicals before expanding her horizons by trying out dramatic roles four years later. By 1928, Miriam was appearing in stock companies on the East Coast, and her reviews were getting better after being vilified earlier in her career.
In 1930, Miriam decided to try the silver screen and signed with Paramount Studios. Her first role was in Fast and Loose (1930),where she played a rebellious girl. She went on to appear in 24 Hours (1931),The Smiling Lieutenant (1931),Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931),and The World and the Flesh (1932).
Miriam's breakthrough performance came in Dancers in the Dark (1932) with George Raft, which served as a catalyst to propel her and Raft to bigger stardom. She went on to appear in Two Kinds of Women (1932),Trouble in Paradise (1932),Design for Living (1933),The Story of Temple Drake (1933),and All of Me (1934).
In 1939, Miriam was considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, but ultimately did not win the part. She made only a few more films before returning to the stage. In 1949, she received the role of Lavinia Penniman in The Heiress.
Miriam continued to work in film and television throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and made her final big-screen appearance in Hollywood Horror House (1970). She died of a heart attack in New York on October 9, 1972, nine days before her 70th birthday.
