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Carole Landis was born on New Year's Day in 1919 in Fairchild, Wisconsin, as Frances Lillian Mary Ridste. Her father, a railroad mechanic, was of Norwegian descent and her mother was Polish. Her father walked out, leaving Carole, her mother and an older brother and sister to fend for themselves.
After graduating from high school, she married Jack Robbins (Irving Wheeler), but the union lasted a month (the marriage was annulled because Carole was only 15 at the time). The couple remarried in August 1934, and the two headed to California to start a new life. For a while she worked as a dancer and singer, but before long the glitter of show business drew her to Los Angeles.
She won a studio contract with Warner Brothers but was a bit player for the most part in such films as A Star Is Born (1937), A Day at the Races (1937), and The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937). The following year started out much the same way, with more bit roles. By 1939, she was getting a few speaking roles, although mostly one-liners, and that year ended much as had the previous two years, with more bit roles; also, she and Wheeler were divorced.
In 1940 she was cast as Loana in the Hal Roach production of One Million B.C. (1940); she finally got noticed (the skimpy outfit helped), and her career began moving. She began getting parts in B pictures but didn't star in big productions -- although she had talent, the really good roles were given to the established stars of the day.
Her busiest year was 1942, with roles in Manila Calling (1942), The Powers Girl (1943), A Gentleman at Heart (1942), and three other movies. Unfortunately, critics took little notice of her films, and when they did, reviewers tended to focus on her breathtaking beauty. By the middle 1940s, Carole's career was beginning to short-circuit. Her contract with 20th Century-Fox had been canceled, her marriages to Willis Hunt Jr. and Thomas Wallace had failed, and her current marriage to Horace Schmidlapp was on the skids; all of that plus health problems spelled disaster for her professionally and personally.
Her final two films, Brass Monkey (1948) and The Silk Noose (1948) were released in 1948. On July 5, 1948, Carole committed suicide by taking an overdose of Seconal in her Brentwood Heights, California, home. She was only 29 and had made 49 pictures, most of which were, unfortunately, forgettable. If Hollywood moguls had given Carole a chance, she could have been one of the brightest stars in its history.- Actress
- Soundtrack
As Disney's lively lass Katie O'Gill, she was the freshness of spring. She could inspire you to dance a jig through a field of flowers. Her entrancing green eyes and catchy spirit had that kind of life-affirming effect. Cute, spunky, almond-eyed British actress Janet Munro was deemed to be an actress from day one as the daughter of Scottish stage and variety-hall comedian Alex Munro (1911-1986) (born Alexander Horsburgh). Janet Neilson Horsburgh was born in Blackpool (near Liverpool), Lancashire, England on September 28, 1934. Her entertainer father adopted the name Munro a few years after she was born. His wife, Janet's mother Phyllis, died when Janet was 8 and she was raised by his second wife, Lilias.
Janet first trained as a teenager in repertory theatre in the Lancashire area, and in the late 1950s she found popularity on British TV, even earning the title of "Miss Television of 1958" from a fan magazine. She also dabbled in films and had prominent roles in the breezy comedy Small Hotel (1957), the drama The Young and the Guilty (1959), and the creepy sci-fi/horror The Crawling Eye (1958) [aka The Trollenberg Terror].
Adaptable to both comedy and drama, the little charmer caught the eye of Walt Disney who saw big things for her, and she was signed to a five-picture deal in 1959. She made four. Appealing to a brand new generation of Britishers and Americans as the scrappy, brunette-banged ingénue of several box-office family films, she brightened up the screen with her performances in Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959), Third Man on the Mountain (1959), and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).
The Golden Globe winner for "most promising newcomer" eventually outgrew Disney and tried to move ahead by altering her wholesome image with some mature, spicier roles, but audiences didn't respond well to this sudden departure. The idea of an adult Janet Munro playing overly-sexy ladies and seriously downtrodden women did not take and her career quickly faltered. Despite a BAFTA nomination for her role in Walk in the Shadow (1962), she began to see life unraveling both personally and professionally right before her eyes.
Janet's marriages to actors Tony Wright and Ian Hendry fell by the wayside and two miscarriages, plus chronic medical ills, only deepened her suffering. Worse yet, she developed an acute alcohol problem. Semi-retired from acting between 1964 and 1968 while married to Hendry in order to raise her children, she found the going difficult when she tried to return full-time.
Ironically, one of Janet's last screen roles showed her at her dramatic best, a boozing pop star in the British film Sebastian (1968). Four years later Janet died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Reports circulated that she choked to death at a London hotel while drinking tea. The immediate cause of her death was acute myocarditis; the underlying cause was chronic ischemic heart disease. The sun set all too soon on this lovely actress when she was only 38. She was survived by her daughters, Sally and Corrie Hendry.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kentucky-born Marie McDonald, born Cora Marie Frye in 1923, was a leggy, voluptuous blonde starlet who pursued her career with a vengeance but found little reward in the end. Her mother was a former Ziegfeld girl and her grandmother an operatic singer. Her father, on the other hand, was not so artistically inclined, earning a living as a warden at Leavenworth Prison. Her parents divorced when Marie was just 6 years old. Marie's mother remarried and the new family moved to Yonkers, New York, where she attended Roosevelt High School and excelled in piano and wrote for the school newspaper.
Although Marie was offered a college scholarship by Columbia University in journalism, Marie's impressive beauty and physical assets propelled her to try a show business career. A Powers model at 15 (she lied about her age), she quit high school and started entering beauty contests, winning the "Miss Yonkers" and "The Queen of Coney Island" titles, among others. In 1939 she was crowned "Miss New York," but subsequently lost at the "Miss America" pageant.
The attention she received from her beauty titles, however, pointed her straight to the Broadway stage and the "George White's Scandals of 1939." This in turn led to her move to Los Angeles, finding work in the chorus line while trying to break into pictures. She found her first singing work with Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra on his radio show and eventually joined other bands as well. Although Universal signed her up, she couldn't get past a few one-line jobs. She knew publicity would have to be her mode of operation if she was to draw the necessary attention and advance her career.
Press agents dubbed Marie "The Body" and the tag eventually stuck. Though her physical attributes were impressive, her talent was less so. Managing to come her way were the films Guest in the House (1944), Living in a Big Way (1947) with Gene Kelly and Tell It to the Judge (1949). Marie was once in contention for the Billie Dawn role in "Born Yesterday," which could have been her big break, but she lost out to Judy Holliday. The audience simply didn't latch on to Marie and she ended up more on the road doing bus-and-truck shows than anything else.
Despite a plethora of tabloid attention, which included her seven marriages and numerous sex scandals in addition to the publicity hijinks she managed to muster up, notoriety that would have made the late Jayne Mansfield envious, Marie's career eventually stalled and she turned to drink, drugs and despair. This led to frequent skirmishes with the law and more than a few nervous breakdowns. Her last effective role was in the Jerry Lewis starrer The Geisha Boy (1958) where she gamely played a snippy movie star at the mercy of the comedian's outrageous slapstick. In 1965, at age 42, the never-say-die gal finally decided enough was enough and she ended it all with an overdose of pills.- Actress
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Helen Twelvetrees was born Helen Marie Jurgens in Brooklyn, New York on December 25, 1908. Her interest in the theatricals was apparent at an early age. After graduating from high school. Helen embarked on a stage career. She participated in a number of plays in New York City, but gravitated toward film when she headed to the West Coast in late 1928. In 1929, Helen appeared in her first motion picture called THE GHOST TALKS. That was quickly followed by WORDS AND MUSIC and BLUE SKIES that same year. Through the early thirties, Helen appeared in a number of movies. Audiences appreciated the pixish, little blonde and the roles she played. Perhaps one of her finest roles was a June Perry in STATE'S ATTORNEY (1932) opposite John Barrymore. Helen's character was romantically involved with the district attorney and plays the part with absolute conviction. Helen continued a hectic filming pace until 1936. She filmed five movies in 1935, but played in only THOROUGHBRED in '36. In 1938, Helen went through a drought and made her last film the following year in UNMARRIED. Helen's film career had ended. Through the balance of her life there seemed to be a void. On February 13, 1958, died after she took an overdose of sedatives. She was 49.- Actress
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Pretty, soulful-eyed Austrian actress Rose Stradner was a rising 30s ingénue on the Viennese stage and in a few German film romances and musicals when MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who was in Europe searching for exotic talent, discovered her. Along with Greer Garson, Ilona Massey and Hedy Lamarr, she was brought to Hollywood and groomed as a foreign import. Unfortunately, her personal life became a shambles and eventually overwhelmed her ability to perform.
She was born Rosa Luise Maria Stradner in Vienna in 1913 and educated at a convent. Her desire to become an actress came young. At 16 she studied at the Academy for Music and Art in Zurich, Switzerland, and at the age of 19, she auditioned for Max Reinhardt and handed a contract. She appeared for Austrian producer Max Reinhardt at the Volkstheater and Theater in der Josefstadt, often in the classics (Shakespeare, Ibsen, Moliere) but also handled modern plays (Dreiser, O'Neill). In Europe she also appeared in some German language films between 1933 and 1936.
Rose, her then-husband Karl Heinz Martin, a stage director, and her mother arrived in the United States in 1936. She and her Martin divorced soon after however. Making her U.S. debut as Edward G. Robinson's put-upon wife in The Last Gangster (1937), she showed promise and was signed by MGM. Her second film Blind Alley (1939), which was more Freudian in nature, starred Chester Morris as a psychologically-disturbed mobster who abducts psychiatrist Ralph Bellamy. Rose had less to do in this picture.
The budding star met well-known writer/producer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz at around this time and she placed her career on hold. The couple married in 1939 had two sons, Chris, born 1940, and Tom. Christopher Mankiewicz, born 1942, who went on to a successful career of his own as a screenwriter. Although Rose returned for a small but key role as a Mother Superior in her husband's film The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), her career was officially over after only three more films. In 1948 she was cast in the Edna Ferber play "Bravo!" but she had to be replaced during tryouts, which caused her severe mental strain.
On a positive note, her fluency in several languages helped her husband's screenplays but the marriage was rocky almost from the start. In addition to Mankiewcz' infamous affairs with such stars as Judy Garland and Linda Darnell, Rose did not take easily to being a "hausfrau," and turned to alcohol to deaden her unhappiness. She would be known for going into emotional tirades and was eventually admitted to sanitariums to treat her violent rates. Constantly threatening suicide, a lethal mix of bitterness and depression set in and on September 27, 1958 ended her pain with an overdose of sleeping pills in the Mt. Kisco, New York, home she shared with her husband. She was only 45.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Christine Maple was born Christine Raphael on November 16, 1912 in Belle-Plaine, Kansas. When she was a child her parents divorced. Her mother remarried and they moved to Los Angeles. Christine started competing in beauty pageants and was a finalist in the Elks National Convention bathing beauty contest. In 1930 she made her film debut in the Charley Chase short Fifty Million Husbands. She also appeared as a dancer in the musical Whoopee. Florenz Ziegfeld hired her to star in the Ziegfeld Follies and gave her the title of "Miss Universe". During the show she shocked audiences by appearing on stage completely nude. She was romantically involved with violinist Enric Madriguera and plastic surgeon Dr. Morton Berson (who fixed her nose). Christine became known for wearing low-cut evening dresses and telling outrageous lies about her life. She once claimed that her father was a British duke. In December of 1933 she was arrested after causing a scene on train in Switzerland.
A few months later the wife of millionaire Martino De Alzaga Unzue accused her of being "too friendly" with her husband. She made headlines in April of 1935 when she got into a fight with a cab driver after refusing to pay her bill. Her mother said she had a nervous breakdown and sent her to a sanitarium. Christine signed a contract with Republic pictures in 1936 and appeared in the westerns The Big Show and Roarin' Lead. She went to Australia in 1938 to appear in a stage production of The Women. Unfortunately she had to leave the show when she became very ill. She suffered another nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized in 1943. After being released she moved to Langhorne, Pennsylvania and worked in a department store. Tragically on January 12, 1947 she committed suicide by hanging herself. Christine was only thirty-four years old. Her body was cremated and her ashes were given to her family.- Actress
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Sheila Terry was born Kathleen Eleanor Mulhern on March 5, 1910 in Warroad, Minnesota. Despite her Irish surname, one of her ancestors was John Wycliffe, who had translated the Bible into English. Kathleen dreamed of being an actress from a very young age. When she was a teenager, she studied dramatics at the Dickson Kenwin Academy of Dramatic Art in Toronto. She began her career acting in stock companies. Unfortunately, her wealthy uncle wanted her to become a teacher instead of an actress. She returned to Minnesota and taught school for a brief time so she could claim her inheritance.
On August 16, 1928, she married Laurence Clark, a banker. Then she moved to New York City and was cast in the play The Little Racketeer. A talent scout saw her in the play, and she was signed by Warner Brothers. In 1932, she made her film debut in the comedy Week-End Marriage (1932). She had small roles in more than a dozen films including Scarlet Dawn (1932) (starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Nancy Carroll), Madame Butterfly (1932) (starring Cary Grant and Sylvia Sidney), and Convention City (1933) (starring Joan Blondell, Adolphe Menjou, and Mary Astor). The blue-eyed blonde was John Wayne's leading lady in the westerns Haunted Gold (1932), The Lawless Frontier (1934), and 'Neath the Arizona Skies (1934). Her marriage to Laurence Clark ended in 1934. She claimed he often criticized her and said she was a "rotten singer". She married William McGee, a San Francisco millionaire, in October 1937, but that union was short-lived.
Unhappy with the roles she was getting, she decided to quit acting. Her final film was the drama I Demand Payment (1938). Then she moved back to New York City and started a new career as a press agent. She had brief romances with actor John Warburton and producer Tay Garnett. In a 1948 interview she said she wanted to start acting again. As she got older she suffered financial problems and depression. On January 19, 1957, she committed suicide by taking an overdose of pills. She was only 49. Impoverished, she was buried at Potter's Field in New York City.- Kate Manx was born on 19 October 1930 in Akron, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for Hero's Island (1962), Private Property (1960) and Perry Mason (1957). She was married to Leslie Stevens and Anthony Brady Farrell. She died on 15 November 1964 in Torrance, California, USA.
- Mayo Methot was born on 3 March 1904 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Jimmy the Gent (1934), Virtue (1932) and Counsellor at Law (1933). She was married to Humphrey Bogart, Percy Tredegar Morgan Jr. and John M. La Mond. She died on 9 June 1951 in Portland, Oregon, USA.
- The daughter of a concert entertainer and a mother who was "Miss Canada of 1918", Canadian-born Suzanne Alexander was one of those numerous starlets who, back in the 1950s, displayed their comely figures in a couple of movies and TV series episodes without finding a worthwhile role to prove themselves. Things could have been different if she had been chosen to play Princess Aouda in Mike Todd's lavishly produced Around the World in 80 Days (1956) for which she tested. But Shirley MacLaine finally landed the part and three years later pretty Alexander vanished from the radar screens. The next time there she was heard of was in September 1975, and it was bad news : Gwendolyn Ann White (Alexander's real name) had leaped to her death from a hotel room in San Francisco. She was only 44.
- This tall, dazzling, yet reserved and sensitive foreign import was born Giovanna Scoglio in Liverpool, England but moved to Sicily with her aristocratic Sicilian father and Irish mother at three months of age. She migrated to New York at age 14 and attended Bayside (Queens) High School, graduating in 1952. She worked various jobs as a file clerk and airline reservations taker while studying with Stella Adler and the Actors Studio. Appearing as a contestant on a television game show, a Universal Studios agent happened to spot the young beauty and immediately placed the young beauty under contract in 1954.
It did not take long before she moved up the Hollywood ladder. After only a couple of bit parts, Gia began earning good notices for her "second lead" roles. Her performance in The Price of Fear (1956) led to even better love interest parts in The Garment Jungle (1957) with Kerwin Mathews, Don't Go Near the Water (1957) opposite Glenn Ford, The Two-Headed Spy (1958) with Jack Hawkins, The Angry Hills (1959) starring Robert Mitchum, and I Aim at the Stars (1960) [aka: Wernher von Braun] with Curd Jürgens. Gia's best known film role came as the mute Anna, the ill-fated Greek resistance fighter, in the classic all-star epic film, The Guns of Navarone (1961) headed up by Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn.
From there things began to spiral downhill for Gia personally and professionally. Riding on the coattails of her ever-present glamour and cinematic success were deep-rooted insecurities. Following the loss of her beloved mother, she fell into acute depression and began to drink heavily as compensation which led to a few arrests. She eventually lost her contract at Universal due to her unreliability, which forced her to seek work overseas. Her marriage to handsome actor Don Burnett, whom she co-starred with in the obscure adventure The Triumph of Robin Hood (1962) [The Triumph of Robin Hood] burnt itself out, and, at one point, she threw herself off London's Waterloo Bridge in desperation. She would have drowned in the Thames River had a passing cab driver not plucked her out of the water in time.
Gia's bouts with depression grew so severe that she was forced to undergo frequent psychiatric observations. In the midst of things she tried to pick herself up emotionally by studying painting and staying close to her younger sister, actress Tina Scala. It was too late. On April 30, 1972, it all ended for Gia Scala. She was found dead in her Hollywood Hills bedroom following an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills. This incredible beauty who never reached her full potential in Hollywood instead became another Tinseltown statistic. - Actress
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Born in Norfolk, Virginia to wealthy stockbroker Cornelius Hancock Sullavan and heiress Garland Council Sullavan, Margaret Brooke overcame a muscle weakness in her childhood to go on to become a rebellious teenager at posh private schools. She went on to perform with the University Players at Harvard and made her Broadway debut in Hello, Lola in 1926. Her Christmas Day marriage in 1931 to Henry Fonda lasted only 15 months, and her later marriages to director William Wyler and agent Leland Hayward were also tempestuous. Two of her three children, Bridget and Bill, would spend some time in mental institutions, and commit suicide. Friends noted that the collapse of her family life led to her breakdown. Her condition worsened over time, until she was discovered unconscious from barbiturate poisoning in a hotel room. Her death was ruled accidental by the county coroner.- Blonde and utterly beautiful, Mary Nolan had the requisite figure and prettiness to rise up fast in the Hollywood ranks. Her downfall, however, would be just as fast and not at all pretty.
She was born Mary Imogene Robertson in 1905 and began her show-business career as a teenage model. Showman Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. took a gander at her--and her gorgeous gams--and signed up the young beauty for his "Follies" shows. A Jazz-Age baby and party girl by nature, Mary (who was using the moniker Imogene Wilson) had already earned the somewhat dubious nickname of "Bubbles" while working in New York, but she made the fatal career mistake of involving herself with a married Ziegfeld comedian and stirring up a major sex scandal. Frank Tinney was a top headliner married to musical comedy star Edna Davenport at the time. Mary's relationship with Tinney became quite abusive and the tabloids exposed the affair after Mary was seriously hospitalized during one of their many arguments. As a third-party husband-stealer, Mary received no comfort at all despite her injuries, and was summarily fired by Ziegfeld.
Forced to flee to Germany to avoid the negative attention, Mary starred in a few films there under the new moniker Imogene Robertson. She weathered the storm for almost two years in Europe before returning unobtrusively to Hollywood films in 1927 under another new stage name--Mary Nolan.
She proved a capable if not exceptional leading lady, pacing herself well in such films as West of Zanzibar (1928) with Lon Chaney, Desert Nights (1929)--one of John Gilbert's last vehicles--and Outside the Law (1930), a gangster flick opposite Edward G. Robinson. She even appeared top-billed in a few minor efforts, including Shanghai Lady (1929) and Young Desire (1930), but Docks of San Francisco (1932) would prove to be her last film appearance.
Troubled over her sudden and inexplicable reversal of fortune, she unfortunately let her self-destructive tendencies kick in again. Broke and despondent, she suffered several nervous breakdowns and her health declined due to acute malnutrition and a variety of physical ailments. She turned to heroin, and it spelled the end.
Little was heard from her until 1948, when she died of cardiac arrest and liver problems. She was only 45 years old. Mary became just one more Hollywood tragedy -- an incredible beauty whose life turned absolutely beastly. - Actress
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Popular star in Hollywood for two decades through 1936, Marie Prevost began as a Mack Sennett "Bathing Beauty" in 1917, later starring in dozens of light comedies. But not long into the sound era, she encountered problems with her burgeoning weight, to the jeopardy of her career. Her self-remedy resulted ultimately in her starving to death.
Marie Prevost was born Mary Bickford Dunn in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, on November 8, 1898. She broke into films when she was 18 years old in Unto Those Who Sin (1916). Finding work in films was difficult in the early days, just as it is today. Marie found herself doing odd jobs until 1917, when she made another film, Secrets of a Beauty Parlor (1917). After filming was completed, Marie found herself unemployed again and went back to scraping around for a living. She kept going to casting calls, but it wasn't until 1919 when she landed a role in Uncle Tom Without a Cabin (1919). Finally, in 1921, movie moguls discovered her talent and began casting her in a number of roles. She appeared in four films that year and an additional six in 1922. Marie seemed to be on a roll. She stayed busy through the balance of the 1920s in a number of films, mostly comedies. As a matter of fact, she would continue making films until 1933, when her appeal began to fade. She made no films in 1934 and precious few after that. With the advent of sound her thick New England accent didn't lend itself well to the "demon microphone", despite her beauty. Her depression about her career--or lack of it--drove her to alcohol, and she died on January 23, 1937, in Hollywood, of a combination of alcoholism and malnutrition, virtually broke and living in a dilapidated apartment. She never saw the release, in 1938, of her final film appearance: Ten Laps to Go (1936). She was 38 years old.- Mary Jane Irving was born on 20 October 1913 in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. She was an actress, known for The White Lie (1918), Scotty of the Scouts (1926) and The Godless Girl (1928). She was married to Robert Carson. She died on 17 July 1983 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Corinne Luchaire was born on 11 February 1921 in Paris, France. She was an actress, known for The Last Turning (1939), Prison Without Bars (1938) and Abbandono (1940). She was married to Guy de Voisins-Lavernière. She died on 22 January 1950 in Paris, France.
- Bella Darvi became a 50s symbol for one of the many movie "Cinderellas" whose bright and beautiful Hollywood fairy tale would come crashing down, ending in bitterness and tragedy. A self-destructive brunette beauty, her life was full of misfortune. Of Polish/French descent, she miraculously survived the tortures of a WWII concentration camp as a youth, only to get caught up in the phony glitter and high-living style of Monaco's casinos as a young adult in Europe. An inveterate gambler and drinker, she was, by chance, "discovered" by movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck and his wife, Virginia Fox, who thought she had a foreign cinematic allure à la Ingrid Bergman. Despite her lack of acting experience, the Zanucks paid off her gambling debts and whisked her away to Hollywood to be groomed for stardom. Her marquee name "Darvi" was derived from the combined first names of her mentors. It should have been a dream-come-true opportunity. Fate, however, would not be so kind. After three high profile roles in The Egyptian (1954), Hell and High Water (1954) and The Racers (1955) opposite three top male films stars (Victor Mature, Richard Widmark and Kirk Douglas, respectively), Darvi's limited abilities were painfully transparent. Not only was she hampered by an ever-so-slight crossed-eyed appearance, she had a trace of a lisp which, combined with a foreign accent, made her speech appear slurred and difficult to understand. It didn't take long for the actress to go off the deep end. Within a short time, a major sex scandal involving Mr. Zanuck had wife Virginia packing Darvi's bags and any "career" she once had here in America was over. She retreated back to Europe, made a few inconsequential films, and quickly returned to her adverse habits -- liquor and the gambling tables. But this time there was no one to save her. Mounting debts and despair eventually turned her thoughts to suicide. After several attempts, Darvi finally succeeded in 1971 by turning on the gas stove in her apartment. She was only 42.
- This tiny (4' 11"), appealing, coquettish-looking Hollywood actress had only a few active years in early talkies before her career took a bad hit. A few years after that she joined other shattered 1930s hopefuls (Peg Entwistle, Gwili Andre, Peggy Shannon) as tragic symbols of unrequited stardom.
Sidney Fox was born Sidney Liefer in New York City on December 10, 1907 (many resources inaccurately give 1910 as her birth date), the daughter of Joseph Liefer. Sidney began contributing to her family income as a teenager in a variety of ways - as a model on Fifth Avenue and a lovelorn columnist to, name two. At one point she entertained the thought of a law career, but her acting desires soon took over. She joined a stock company in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where she performed in such shows as "The Big Pond," "Wedding Bells," "The Ghost Train" and "Gregory's Woman."
Back in New York she made her Broadway debut in 1929 with the popular comedy "It Never Rains" at the Republic Theatre, then garnered more attention the next year with another comedy role in "Lost Sheep", which served as her breakthrough into films. Discovered by Universal mogul Carl Laemmle Jr., she was placed directly into a starring role opposite Bette Davis (in her film debut as well) in Bad Sister (1931). In an odd bit of casting, it was innocent-eyed Sidney who played the scheming, vixenish sister and the formidable Bette playing the timid, sympathetic one in a movie that also co-starred up-and-comer Humphrey Bogart.
Guided by Laemle, Jr., Universal continued their buildup of the pert and girlish brunette starlet with appearances in more pictures. Named one of 13 "Wampas Baby Stars" of 1931, she also began making the covers of such movie magazines as "Modern Screen" and "Movie Mirror". Sidney continued making strides in film comedy co-starring with Spencer Tracy in 6 Cylinder Love (1931) and, more importantly, Paul Lukas in Strictly Dishonorable (1931), the latter arguably the best role of her career as the Southern girl who attracts the attention of an Italian opera star (Lukas). Amazingly, she received top billing over Universal horror icon Bela Lugosi in her best-remembered film, Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), but Lugosi easily stole the proceedings from the rather overly dramatic ingénue.
Sidney's performances in film tended toward the saccharine and obviousness and this one-dimensional aspect hurt a number of her films, including the dramatic "soapers," Nice Women (1931), Afraid to Talk (1932) and, notably, Midnight (1934), in which she ineffectively re-teamed with Bogart. Sweet and simple in style, she seemed better suited towards lighter comedy and one of her better films at the time was Once in a Lifetime (1932) co-starring funny guy Jack Oakie. Targeted by gossip-mongers as to her "professional relationship" with Laemmle, Jr., she avoided the Hollywood limelight for a time and tried her luck appearing in such European features as Don Quixote (1933), directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, and Die Abenteuer des Königs Pausole (1933) [The Adventures of King Pausole], but to little avail.
A stormy marriage to Universal Studios editor Charles Beahan (they married in December of 1932) did not help matters as she became more famous for her tabloid-feeding off-camera life than for the films she was making. They had no children. Her last three pictures -- Midnight (1934), Down to Their Last Yacht (1934) a School for Girls (1934) -- did nothing to reverse her downhill fortunes in Hollywood, although she remained a romantic leading lady throughout her career and was never reduced to bit parts. The following years included some work here and there on the Orpheum Theatre circuit, on radio and a brief return to Broadway in a replacement role. Then there was nothing.
Illness and depression set in, not helped by her unhappy, abusive marriage. On the morning of November 15, 1942, the 34-year-old actress was found dead in her Beverly Hills bedroom by her husband after consuming a fatal number of sleeping pills. A most probable suicide, she was buried in Mt. Lebanon Cemetery in Queens, New York. Little remembered today, lovely Sidney Fox remains a sad footnote in the Hollywood annals but her pictures still deserve a curious look. - Peggy Shannon was born Winona Sammon on January 10, 1907, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. She attended Catholic school where she became friends with child actress Madge Evans. While visiting her aunt in New York sixteen year old Peggy was discovered by producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.. He hired her as a chorus girl in The Ziegfeld Follies. Peggy married actor Alan Davis in 1926. The following year she was starring on Broadway in Earl Carrol's production of What Anne Brought Home. In 1931 she was offered a contract at Paramount studios. With her beautiful face and red hair Peggy was promoted as "the new Clara Bow". When Clara suffered a nervous breakdown Peggy was given her role in The Secret Call (1931). Although she starred in the films This Reckless Age (1932) and Hotel Continental (1932), her career never really took off. She also developed a reputation for being difficult to work with. After her movie contract was not renewed she tried returning to Broadway. Unfortunately by this time she had serious drinking problem and was fired from the play The Light Behind The Shadow. Peggy continued to get small parts in B-movies like Youth on Parole (1937) and Cafe Hostess (1940). She divorced Alan in 1940 and married camera man Al Roberts. On May 11, 1941 her husband returned home from a trip and found Peggy slumped over the kitchen table. She had died from a heart attack at the young age of thirty-four. Her autopsy revealed that she had a serious liver ailment caused by her alcoholism. Three weeks after her death Albert committed suicide. Peggy is buried at Hollywood Forever cemetery in Hollywood, California. The epitaph on her tombstone says "That Red Headed Girl, Peggy Shannon".
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Carmen Laroux was born on 4 September 1909 in Durango, Mexico. She was an actress, known for Cavalier of the West (1931), Saved by the Belle (1939) and Las campanas de Capistrano (1930). She was married to Elmer Ellsworth and ? Ybarra. She died on 24 August 1942 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Born in Denver, Co, 6 August, 1925 and originally named Barbara Jane Bates, Barbara was the eldest of 3 daughters born to a postal clerk and RN.
Rather shy, her mother initially sent Barbara to study ballet. By her late teens, the young beauty began to model clothes as a teen out of high school.
Fighting off a life-long paralyzing shyness,she managed to be persuaded to enter a local beauty contest, with the winner receiving 2 round-trip train tickets to Hollywood.
Barbara won the contest, and with that the demure but very troubled young woman was on the first steps of her career.
Once in California, she met Cecil Coan, a United Artists publicist. Coan, a married man with children who was more than two decades older than Barbara, fell hard for the young beauty. He promised to guide her career and make her a star.
He proved his worth and dedication to her when he left his wife and married Barbara.
Groomed in obscure starlet bits, it wasn't until Warner Bros. signed her in 1947 and perpetuated an appealing girl-next-door image when her career started happening. It took some time before the actress started making strides apart from the bobby-soxxer ingénue.
She turned heads and supported herself initially as a pin-up girl, a job she didn't enjoy. She rose in rank after a number of bit parts and, during her peak as a lead and second lead, appeared opposite a number of stars, including Bette Davis in June Bride (1948), Danny Kaye in The Inspector General (1949), Rory Calhoun in I'd Climb the Highest Mountain (1951), and even Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis in their comedy,The Caddy (1953) just to name a few.
Much of Barbara's work in the above films was routine. Barbara's on-and-off-screen life started unraveling not long afterward. Succumbing to extreme mood shifts, insecurity, ill health and chronic depression to the point of being taken off important film assignments. By age 30, the promise she had once shown was no longer considered, and she and her husband Coen, who made all of Barbara's decisions for her, tried to salvage her career in England.
Things looked promising at first, when she was picked up by the Rank Organisation and co-starred with John Mills and Michael Craig in a couple of dramatic suspense films, but the films were mediocre. She again started showing signs of instability to the point where she was dropped from 2 films and the Rank Organisation was forced to drop her.
The couple returned to Hollywood, where old friend Rory Calhoun cast her in a picture he was producing and starring in called Apache Territory (1958).
Emotionally unable to withstand the pressures of Hollywood any more, Barbara abandoned her career, save for an appearance in The Loaded Tourist (1962),starring Roger Moore.
Nothing was heard of Barbara until her March 1969 death. It was learned she'd returned to her hometown of Denver and worked in various jobs, including stints as a secretary, dental assistant and hospital aide. Her much older husband and chief supporter, Cecil Coan, died of cancer in January 1967, and Barbara fell apart.
Although she remarried in December of 1968 to a childhood friend, sportscaster William Reed, she remained increasingly despondent. She committed suicide just 4 months later. She was found dead in her car by her mother in her mother's garage of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Interestingly, the one role she'll always be identified with is also one of the smallest parts given her during her brief tenure as leading lady.
In the very last scene of All About Eve (1950). Barbara turns up in the role of Phoebe, a devious school girl and wannabe actress who shows startling promise as a future schemer along the lines of her equally ruthless idol, Eve Harrington, superbly played by Anne Baxter.
Barbara's image is enshrined in the picture's very last scene - posing in front of a 3-way mirror while clutching Baxter's just-received acting award. It's this brief, moment for which she'll best be remembered.- Actress
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Nora Bennett Schilling was born in Chester, Illinois. She grew up and went to school near St. Louis. After modeling for a time, she went to visit a friend in California and was noticed by someone in the film industry. She successfully passed her screen test and began playing small parts in silent films in 1927, taking on the name Lane. In her 17 year career she played in over 80 films. Her notable works include her role as Zerelda in Jesse James (1927), her role as Sally in The Cisco Kid (1931), the villainous role of Goldie in Western Frontier (1935), as well as her supporting part in Jimmy the Gent (1934) which starred James Cagney and Bette Davis. She played in four Hopalong Cassidy films, two of which she was cast as the widowed ranch owner, Nora Blake. In her personal life, she was noted as an excellent swimmer and won many awards. On August 5, 1931, she and fellow actors Warner Baxter and Edmund Lowe were involved in a Southern Pacific train crash 20 miles east of Yuma, Arizona, but managed to escape uninjured. In 1941 she married Burdette Henney and retired from movies in 1944. The two lived a happy marriage until tragedy struck in 1948 when they went on a fishing trip in Bishop, California, during which Nora's husband died suddenly of a heart attack. On October 16, exactly one month after Burdette's death, the grief stricken widow shot herself dead after leaving a note to her step-son, simply saying she could not go on without him.- Lilian Hall Davis was born June 23, 1898, in Mile End, London, England, the daughter of a London cab driver. For publicity purposes, she changed the spelling of her name to to the tonier Lillian Hall-Davis and reported her birthplace as the more fashionable Hampstead, London. She began acting in films in 1917 and by the early 1920s, Hall-Davis was one of the leading actresses of British silent film. She was Alfred Hitchcock's favorite actress during the early days of his career. He directed her in The Ring (1927) and The Farmer's Wife (1928) Hall-Davis was married to Walter Pemberton, a British stage actor. Her last film was a supporting role in Her Reputation (1931). By 1933, her film career was over, she was being treated for neurasthenia and was suffering a nervous breakdown. On October 25, 1933, she locked herself in the kitchen of her home in Golders Green, turned on the gas, stuck her head in the oven, and cut her throat with her brother's straight razor. Her 14-year-old son Grovsvenor, came home from school, found her suicide note in the hall and summoned the neighbors for help. They were too late. Hall-Davis was dead at the age of 34.
- Actress
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Ona Munson was born Owena Elizabeth Wolcott on June 16, 1903 in Portland, Oregon. She took singing and dancing lessons when she was a child. At the age of fourteen, Ona moved to New York City with her mother. She began her career performing in vaudeville. In 1919 she made her Broadway debut in George White's Scandals. She appeared in several hit Broadway shows including No, No, Nanette and Hold Everything. Ona married stage actor Edward Buzzell in 1926. She went to Hollywood in 1930 to make the comedy Going Wild (1930). Soon after, she divorced her husband and started dating director Ernst Lubitsch. She starred in The Hot Heiress (1931) with Ben Lyon and in Broadminded (1931) with Joe E. Brown. Ona returned to Broadway in 1933 for a production of Hold Your Horses. While appearing in the show Ghosts she had a brief romance with actress Alla Nazimova. She also had relationships with Greta Garbo, Tallulah Bankhead, and director Dorothy Arzner. In 1939 she was cast as Belle Watling, a Southern madam, in Gone with the Wind (1939). The movie was a huge success but Ona ended up being typecast in similar roles. She got rave reviews playing a madam again in the film The Shanghai Gesture (1941).
Ona had a passionate love affair with playwright Mercedes de Acosta. She said they shared "the deepest spiritual moment that life brings". Worried about being outed as a lesbian she ended the romance and married Stewart McDonald, a loan administrator, in 1941. Their marriage was an arrangement since Stewart was also gay. During World War 2 she was chosen to be "Hollywood's official hostess" and acted as a godmother to hundreds of soldiers. She made some movies at Warner Brothers but her career stalled. Her final film was the thriller The Red House (1947). Ona divorced Stewart and married French painter Eugene Berman in 1950. This was another lavender marriage to a gay man. The couple moved to an apartment in The Belnord on Manhattan's Upper West Side. During the early 1950s Ona appeared in a few television shows. Unfortunately she was plagued by health problems and became very depressed. On February 1955 she committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was fifty-one years old. Ona left a note that said "This is the only way I know to be free again ... Please don't follow me." She is buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.- Florence Lawrence was the first film player whose name was used to promote her films and the studio (Independent Moving Pictures Company [IMP]) for which she worked. Before her, actors and actresses worked anonymously, partly out of fear that stage managers would refuse to hire them if they were found to be working in films and partly because movie executives didn't want to put much money into the production of these short, practically disposable films, and didn't want their players to become well known and start demanding higher salaries. Lawrence was on the stage from age three, appearing in musicals and plays, whistling and playing the violin. At 20 she was cast in the Edison production of Daniel Boone (1907), and that led to work at Vitagraph Studios. From there she was hired by Biograph, where she refined and perfected her craft under the direction of D.W. Griffith. In 1909 she left Biograph to seek more recognizable employment at another film company. As a result she was blacklisted by the Motion Picture Trust, headed by Thomas A. Edison, to which most motion-picture producers belonged and which held the patents on most film production equipment and would not allow any companies that did not belong to the Trust to use them. Carl Laemmle started IMP in late 1909, and refused to join the Motion Picture Trust. The Trust took action--both legal and otherwise--to discourage Laemmle from producing films on his own. Lawrence and her husband, director Harry Solter, signed on as IMP's first featured players. In 1910 Laemmle, partly out of anger over the Trust's actions--such as hiring thugs to attack his film crews and wreck his equipment--decided to advertise the fact that he had Miss Lawrence. She made the first personal appearance of a film star in St. Louis, MO, that March, and the resulting publicity made her famous (and also increased the grosses on her--and Laemmle's--films). Other film companies soon followed suit, and the names of film actors and actresses began to appear in all segments of the media. Lawrence worked for IMP for a year, then spent another year at Lubin before she began her own production company, Victor, where she worked on and off until 1914. After a stage accident in which she injured her back, she retired from films, only to be lured back in 1916 for her first feature, Elusive Isabel (1916). It was unsuccessful. She tried a comeback again in 1921; that, too, was unsuccessful. She settled into bit parts and character roles through the 1920s and 1930s. She committed suicide in 1938 after years of unhappiness and illness. She was found in her apartment on Dec. 27, 1938 and died soon afterward in hospital.
- Barbara Read was born on 29 December 1917 in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada. She was an actress, known for Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), Three Smart Girls (1936) and The Spellbinder (1939). She was married to William Talman, Willard Edward Josephy, John Pershing Crawford and William Paul III. She died on 11 December 1963 in Laguna Beach, California, USA.
- Brenda Benet, born Brenda Ann Nelson in Los Angeles, California, on August 14, 1945, was a classic example of the modern-day Hollywood tragedy. As a television actress with good dramatic scope, she managed to piece together a wide and impressive portfolio of guest shots in a career spanning just over 16 years before taking her life at the age of 36. She spent her childhood and early teenage years feeling awkward and self-conscious because her complexion was darker than those of her siblings. Because of this, she felt that she did not fit in with her family, and often fantasized about being adopted.
Brenda attended UCLA for a brief time, majoring in languages. In 1962 she entered show business; her breakthrough role came in 1964 when she was selected to play the part of Jill McComb in The Young Marrieds (1964). After that came stints on various comedy and drama series in the '60s and '70s, usually playing ethnic, exotic types. She was probably best known for her role as the kind-hearted prostitute in Walking Tall (1973). During this time she married and divorced actor Paul Petersen. She began a relationship with Bill Bixby and moved in with him in 1969, and they married in 1971. By the late '70s, however, they were divorced.
Brenda retired from the business in the mid-'70s to raise a family, and in late 1974 she gave birth to a boy, Christopher Sean Bixby. Tragically, Christopher died in 1981 during a winter ski vacation in California. It was believed that this and her divorce from Bixby were the events which caused Brenda's life to spin out of control. On April 7, 1982, Brenda went into the bathroom of her West Los Angeles home, lit and arranged some candles in a circle on the floor and lay down. She then placed a Colt .38-cal. revolver into her mouth and pulled the trigger. She died instantly.