Monthly Archives: September 2019

Actors, Articles, Home, Pre Code Films

Marian Marsh

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Prepared by Daniel B Miller

Marian Marsh (October 17, 1913 – November 9, 2006) was a Trinidad-born American film actress, and later, environmentalist.

Early life

Violet Ethelred Krauth was born on October 17, 1913 in Trinidad, British West Indies (now Trinidad and Tobago), the youngest of four children of a German chocolate manufacturer and his French–English wife.

Due to World War I, Violet’s father moved his family to Boston, Massachusetts. By the time she was ten, the family had relocated to Hollywood, California. Her older sister, an actress who went by the name of Jean Fenwick, landed a job as a contract player with FBO Studios.

Jean Fenwick

Violet attended Le Conte Junior High School and Hollywood High School. In 1928 Violet was approached by silent screen actress Nance O’Neil who offered her speech and movement lessons, and with her sister Jean’s help, Violet soon entered the movies. She secured a contract with Pathé where she was featured in many short subjects under the name Marilyn Morgan.

Marian Marsh as Marilyn Morgan

Marian Marsh as Marilyn Morgan

She was seen in a small roles in Howard Hughes‘s classic Hell’s Angels (1930) and Eddie Cantor‘s lavish Technicolor musical Whoopee! (1930). Not long afterwards, she was signed by Warner Bros. and her name was changed to Marian Marsh.

Marian Marsh and Howard Hughes

Marian Marsh in Whoopee (1930)

Hollywood success

In 1931, after appearing in a number of short films, Marsh landed one of her most important roles in Svengali opposite John Barrymore. Marsh was chosen by Barrymore, himself, for the role of “Trilby”. Barrymore, who had selected her partly because she resembled his wife, coached her performance throughout the picture’s filming. Svengali was based on the 1894 novel Trilby written by George du Maurier. A popular play, likewise entitled Trilby, followed in 1895.

Marian Marsh and John Barrymore in Svengali (1931)

Marian Marsh and John Barrymore in Svengali (1931)

In the film version, Marsh plays the artist’s model Trilby, who is transformed into a great opera star by the sinister hypnotist, Svengali. The word “Svengali'” has entered the English language, defining a person who, with sometimes evil intent, tries to persuade another to do what he desires.

Marsh was awarded the title of WAMPAS Baby Stars in August 1931 even before her second movie with Warner Brothers was released. With her ability to project warmth, sincerity and inner strength on the screen along with critical praise and the audience’s approval of Svengali, she continued to star in a string of successful films for Warner Bros. including Five Star Final (1931) with Edward G. Robinson, The Mad Genius (1931) with Barrymore, The Road to Singapore (1931) with William Powell, The Sport Parade (1932) with Joel McCrea Beauty and the Boss (1932) with Warren William, and Under 18 (again with William).

In 1932, in the midst of a grueling work schedule, Marsh left Warner Bros. and took several film offers in Europe which lasted until 1934. She enjoyed working in England and Germany, as well as vacationing several times in Paris. Back in the United States, she appeared as the heroine, Elnora, in a popular adaptation of the perennial favorite A Girl of the Limberlost (1934).

In 1935, Marsh signed a two-year pact with Columbia Pictures. During this time, she starred in such films as Josef von Sternberg‘s classic Crime and Punishment(1935) with Peter Lorre, The Black Room (1935) regarded as one of Boris Karloff‘s best horror films of the decade, and The Man Who Lived Twice (1936) with Ralph Bellamy.

When her contract expired in 1936, Marsh once again freelanced; appearing steadily in movies for RKO Radio Pictures where she made Saturday’s Heroes with Van Heflin, and for Paramount Pictures where she played a young woman caught up in a mystery in The Great Gambini (1937). She appeared with comic Joe E. Brown in When’s Your Birthday? (1937), and Richard Arlen in Missing Daughters (1939). In the 1940s, Marsh played the wife in Gentleman from Dixie (1941) and, in her last screen appearance, Marsh portrayed the daughter in House of Errors (1942) which starred veteran silent film actor, Harry Langdon.

In the late 1950s, she appeared with John Forsythe in an episode of his TV series Bachelor Father and in an episode of the TV series Schlitz Playhouse of Stars before retiring in 1959.

Personal life

Marsh married a stockbroker named Albert Scott on March 29, 1938 and had two children with him. They divorced in 1959. In 1960, Marsh married Cliff Henderson, an aviation pioneer and entrepreneur whom she had met in the early 1930s. They moved to Palm Desert, California, a town Henderson founded in the 1940s.

In the 1960s Marsh founded Desert Beautiful, a non-profit, all volunteer conservation organization to promote environmental and beautification programs.

Cliff Henderson died in 1984 and Marsh remained in Palm Desert until her death, aged 93. She is buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.

Legacy

  • October 17, 2015 was designated as Marian Marsh-Henderson Day by the city of Palm Desert, California.

Partial filmography

References

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b Marian Marsh at Find a Grave
  2. Jump up^ bio on Marian Marsh; by Hans J. Wollstein
  3. Jump up^ “Marian Marsh: Biography”. IMDb. Retrieved 2015-03-03.
  4. Jump up^ Marsh, Marian. “Marian Marsh – Forever Trilby, Biography of the 1930s Screen Beauty”. immortalemphemera. Retrieved 2015-03-03.
Actors, Articles, Pre Code Films

Una Merkel

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Prepared by Daniel B Miller

Una Merkel (December 10, 1903 – January 2, 1986) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress.

Merkel was born in Kentucky and acted on stage in New York in the 1920s. She went to Hollywood in 1930 and became a popular film actress. Two of her best-known performances are in the films 42nd Street and Destry Rides Again. She won a Tony award in 1956, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1961.

Una Merkel in 42nd Street promo

Una Merkel with Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again

Life and career

Una Merkel was born in Covington, Kentucky, to Arno Merkel and Bessie Phares but in her early childhood, she lived in many of the Southern United States due to her father’s job as a traveling salesman.

At the age of 15, her parents and she moved to Philadelphia. They stayed there a year or so before settling in New York City, where she began attending the Alviene School of Dramatic Art.

Una Merkel aged 4

Because of her strong resemblance to actress Lillian Gish, Merkel was offered a part as Gish’s youngest sister in a silent film called World Shadows.

Unfortunately, the public never saw the film because funding for it dried up, and it was never completed. Merkel went on to appear in a few silent films during the silent era, several of them for the Lee Bradford Corporation. She also appeared in the two-reel Love’s Old Sweet Song (1923), which was made by Lee DeForest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process and starred Louis Wolheim and Helen Weir.

Not making much of a mark in films, Merkel turned her attention to the theater and found work in several important plays on Broadway. Her biggest triumph was in Coquette (1927), which starred her idol, Helen Hayes.

Invited to Hollywood by famous director D. W. Griffith to play Ann Rutledge in his Abraham Lincoln (1930), Merkel was a big success in the “talkies”. During the 1930s, she became a popular second lead in a number of films, usually playing the wisecracking best friend of the heroine, supporting actresses such as Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, and Eleanor Powell.

Una Merkel with Walter Huston in Abraham Lincoln

With her Kewpie-doll looks, strong Southern accent, and wry line delivery, Merkel enlivened scores of films in the 1930s. She even had the distinction of playing Sam Spade‘s secretary in the original 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon. Merkel was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player from 1932 to 1938, appearing in as many as 12 films in a year, often on loan-out to other studios. She was also often cast as leading lady to a number of actors in their starring pictures, including Jack Benny, Harold Lloyd, Franchot Tone, and Charles Butterworth.

Una Merkel with Ricardo Cortez in The Maltese Falcon

In 42nd Street (1933), Merkel played a streetwise show girl who was Ginger Rogers‘ character’s buddy. In the famous “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” number, Merkel and Rogers sang the verse: “Matrimony is baloney. She’ll be wanting alimony in a year or so./Still they go and shuffle, shuffle off to Buffalo.” Merkel appeared in both the 1934 and the 1952 film versions of The Merry Widow, playing different roles in each.

One of her most famous roles was in the Western comedy Destry Rides Again (1939) in which her character, Lily Belle, gets into a famous “cat-fight” with Frenchie (Marlene Dietrich) over the possession of her husband’s trousers, won by Frenchie in a crooked card game. She played the elder daughter to the W. C. Fields character, Egbert Sousé, in the 1940 film The Bank Dick. Her film career went into decline during the 1940s, although she continued working in smaller productions. In 1950, she was leading lady to William Bendix in the baseball comedy Kill the Umpire, which was a surprise hit.

42nd Street Promo

Una Merkel and Ernst Lubitsch on the set of The Merry Widow

She made a comeback as a middle-aged woman playing mothers and maiden aunts, and in 1956 won a Tony Award for her role on Broadway in The Ponder Heart. She had a major part in the MGM 1959 film The Mating Game as Paul Douglas‘ wife and Debbie Reynolds‘s mother, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Summer and Smoke (1961). She was also featured as Brian Keith‘s housekeeper, Verbena, in the Walt Disney comedy The Parent Trap in 1961. Her final film role was opposite Elvis Presley in Spinout.

Una Merkel and Elvis Presley 1950s

Personal life

On March 5, 1945, Merkel was nearly killed when her mother Bessie, with whom she was sharing an apartment in New York City, committed suicide by gassing herself. Merkel was overcome by the five gas jets her mother had turned on in their kitchen and was found unconscious in her bedroom.

On March 4, 1952, nearly seven years to the day that Merkel’s mother committed suicide, Merkel overdosed on sleeping pills. She was found unconscious by a nurse who was caring for her at the time and remained in a coma for a day.

Merkel was a lifelong practicing Methodist.

Marriage

Merkel was married once and had no children. She married North American Aviation executive Ronald L. Burla in 1932. They separated in April 1944. Merkel filed for divorce on December 19, 1946 in Miami, and it was granted in March 1947.

Death

On January 2, 1986, Merkel died in Los Angeles at the age of 82. She is buried near her parents, Arno and Bessie Merkel, in Highland Cemetery in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Una Merkel has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (6230 Hollywood Boulevard). In 1991, a historical marker was dedicated to her in her hometown of Covington, KY.

Filmography

Features

Short subjects

References

  1. Jump up^ Kentucky. Birth Records, 1847-1911
  2. Jump up^ Reid, Alexander (5 January 1986), “Una Merket Dies at Age of 82; From Silent Films to a Tony”, The New York Times, p. 24
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b “Una Merkel Lies In Coma After Pill Overdose”. Star-News. Wilmington, North Carolina. March 4, 1952. p. 4. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  4. Jump up^ “Una Merkel in Death Escape”. Lodi News-Sentinel. Lodi, California. March 6, 1945. p. 8. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  5. Jump up^ “Una Merkel Recovering”. The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, Australia. March 6, 1952. p. 3. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  6. Jump up^ kyumc.org/events/detail/1806
  7. Jump up^ “About FUMC”. First United Methodist Church, Eunice, Louisiana.
  8. ^ Jump up to:a b Folkart, Burt A. (January 4, 1986). “Una Merkel, Movie, Stage Actress, Dies”. latimes.com. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  9. Jump up^ “Divorce Is Sought By Una Merkel”. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. December 3, 1946. p. 2. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  10. ^ Jump up to:a b “Una Merkel Files Suit on Back Alimony”. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California. November 6, 1947. p. 2.
  11. Jump up^ “Actress Una Merkel dies”. The Evening News. Newburgh, New York. January 5, 1986. p. 2A. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  12. Jump up^ Tenkotte, Paul A.; Claypool, James C., eds. (2015). The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky. p. 615. ISBN 0-813-15996-2.
  13. Jump up^ “Hollywood Star Walk: Una Merkel”. latimes.com. Retrieved March 22, 2015.

Further reading

  • Kinder, Larry Sean. Una Merkel: The Actress With Sassy Wit and Southern Charm. Albany, GA: BearManor Media, 2016.