Incredibly beautiful, with a superb figure, Blanche was a sought-after model, working with prestigious photographers and modeling for publications like Vogue in the late 1930s. When she landed in Hollywood in the early 1940s, to get a foothold in the famously fickle town, she did the “dumb broad” PR move – trying to make herself a ditzy brunette with infamously stupid quips, she hoped to get some traction and some better roles. This deflated just as soon as it inflated, and after the novelty was off, nothing was achieved, and Blanche left Hollywood to return to New York, hoping for a theater career, but marriage took her into some other directions. Let’s learn more about her!
EARLY LIFE
Blanche Sophia Grady was born on November 26, 1919, in New York City, New York, to George W. A. Grady and Sophia R. Grady. She had an older sister, Doris, born in 1916. Her father was a manufacturer.
Blanche grew up in Queens, New York, where she attended elementary and high school. Blanche had a knack for the dramatics since she was a kid, and it showed. Plus, she came to be a stunning young woman over time. Come summer Blanche, set out with a crowd of young enthusiasts for the Noyes School in Connecticut where they lives in tents and learn the art of the dance. It was there that a fashion editor discovered Blanche and asked her to model in 1936, when she was just 17 years old. She became a model while still in high school, and worked with both the Harry Conover and John Robert Powers Modeling Agencies. In 1938, she was featured in Vogue wearing luxury designs such as striped lamé evening dresses and posing for high-concept photography. Blanche was the subject of the iconic 1939 photograph “Electric Beauty” by the legendary photographer Horst P. Horst, which appeared as a full-page advertisement in Paris. She frequently appeared on the magazines such Harper’s Bazaar, Pic, and Esquire.
Blanche was not only pretty, but that the oomph factor in regards to clothes. She wore clothes so effectively that she was sent to all the fashionable gatherings to display them. She often appeared at the Horse Shows and the Kennel Club Shows, at the Beaux Art Balls and the polo matches. She even appeared at the World Series. And the clothes she wore to these gatherings are the clothes other women would wear tomorrow. She had a superb figure which displays clothes perfectly.
Despite making a lot of money as a model, Blanche dreamed of being an actress and dancer, managing to combine modeling with stage training. She was especially into creative dancing and continued taking dancing lessons long after her modeling career became lucrative. After a few years of mostly doing modeling, her luck was about to change. Unable to find enough beautiful showgirls in Hollywood for a new musical picture, a movie company here interviewed 500 in New York, screen tested 18 and finally selected two: Lynda Grey, and the other one was, you guessed it, Blanche. Thus our pretty girl landed in Hollywood in 1941.
CAREER
Pretty thin pickings here. While she might have appeared in a bit more than IMDB suggests, I think it’s not a helluwa lot more. Her filmography features a string of notable comedies and musical revues:
Louisiana Purchase (1941)
Grady’s high-profile studio introduction came in this lavish, Technicolor musical comedy starring Bob Hope, Vera Zorina, and Victor Moore. Based on the hit Irving Berlin Broadway show, the film satirized political corruption and New Orleans’ Mardi Gras culture. Paramount capitalized perfectly on Grady’s background as a premier New York showgirl-model, casting her as one of the glamorous “Louisiana Belles”—a collective of stunning starlets used to bring visual luxury and high-fashion flair to the film’s grand musical numbers.
True to the Army (1942)
Switching gears to slapstick comedy, Grady appeared in this fast-paced military farce designed to boost wartime morale. The plot features a female circus performer masquerading as a male soldier on an army base to hide from gangsters. Alongside legendary performers like Judy Canova, Jerry Colonna, and +Ann Miller, Blanche was uncredited but looked glamorous as always.
Young and Willing (1943)
In a narrative that closely mirrored her own real-life ambitions, Grady joined an impressive ensemble of young talent—including future icons William Holden and Susan Hayward—in this comedy about starving, eccentric stage hopefuls sharing a New York apartment. The story follows their chaotic and humorous schemes to trick a theatrical producer into giving them their big break on Broadway. Grady filled out the cast of ambitious young artists, bringing an authentic touch to a story about theatrical aspirations.
And that is it from Blanche!
PRIVATE LIFE
Blanche was a true clotheshorse, courtesy of her modeling days. Her wardrobe was legendary among her friends and acquaintances. Blanche was known for her striking, coordinated ensembles. Her signature look involved a steel-grey town coat trimmed with dark lamb fur, worn over matching wool dresses, or a heavy purple tweed sports coat thrown over a pink sweater and a purple, grey, and pink plaid suit. When she returned to New York from the coast, she caused a stir stepping off the train in a deep California tan, a white dress, and a startlingly massive red straw hat. A few other things to know about Blanche: she didn’t like her name. She liked forceful men. Her eyes were blue-green, she had light brown hair and her weight was around 115, Her skin was fair, but she used dark make-up.
The studio decided to pump Blanche’s PR by making her into the zany, dumb blonde, in the vein of Gracie Allen and Marie Wilson. And then a torrent of stories about her ingenious quips appeared in the papers. Examples:
During her first few days in Hollywood she had a date with a notorious wolf. Other girls advised her to be careful lest he invite her up to see his etchings. The next day Miss Grady told her friends they must be mistaken. “He didn’t say a word about etchings. I don’t think he has any..” Her most famous crack occurred during her first day on the Paramount lot. At lunch time she was asked if she’d like to go to the commissary. “Must I?” she said. “I don’t like hospitals.”
Blanche went to a studio showing of “Sullivan’s Travels.” which costars Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. Discussing the picture with her group, a friend asked: “How is Veronica Lake?” “Well,” answered Blanche blankly, “I don’t know—isn’t she having a baby?”
Paramount’ Blanche Grady had a quip ready when she visited the studio still department. “I didn’t know they went in for making whisky on the lot,” she observed.
Blanche had dinner at home, and has strolled around to have some dessert and conver 53B LB sation with whoever happens to be present. “I’ll have a dish of ice cream,” Blanche Grady says to the cirl behind the counter. “What flavor?” “Wait a minute,” answers Blanche Grady, “until I see what dress I am wearing.” Everyone is bewildered. What has a dress to do with an order of Ice cream? Blanche Grady explains: “I always have ice cream the same color as the dress I’m wearing. Then if I spill any on it the stain wouldn’t show. I think strawberry would go well with this dress.”
This article sums it up nicely about what they wanted her to achieve with all these gimmicks:
It used to be Marie Wilson who got all the credit for Hollywood dumb-belleisms, but she is rapidly being, pushed aside by Blanche Grady, former $250 – a – week Powers model in New York, now under contract to Paramount. Blanche does so many screwy things, people on the lot are afraid to have anything to do with her. She has a face, a magazine cover smile, and physical foundation for her clothing which, is neat, yet, the talk of the place is that she’s always in a fog.
When a publicist asked if she’d like to join them at the studio commissary for lunch, Blanche reportedly recoiled. “Must I?” she asked. “I don’t like hospitals.”
The press ate it up. When she was working on the musical Louisiana Purchase (1941) alongside Bob Hope, the comedian happened to mention Thomas Jefferson’s historic 1803 land deal with Napoleon.
“Think of it,” Hope riffed, “$15,000,000 for all that vast territory.” “My goodness,” Blanche gasped, “did Paramount pay only $15,000,000 for Louisiana Purchase? That really was a bargain!”
The papers claimed people on the lot were “afraid to have anything to do with her” because she was so flighty. But a few columnists caught onto the joke. One sharp writer spotted her dining at Lucey’s with a comedy writer and noted she was simply studying the art of the comedic persona—calling her “dumb, like a fox.”
Blanche had much more success with the boys. As soon as she landed in Hollywood, she was up for anything, and her first goal was to seduce Mickey Rooney, an actor she adored. So, after meeting him in the studio commissary, she asked HIM for a date. here is the full story:
The other day Mickey Rooney, visiting Paramount, was taken to the commissary to meet a lovely young actress named Blanche Grady, who, it seems, uses her head for more than an ornament. As Rooney approached, she slipped off her shoes and cached them under her table, then stood up to greet him. Mickey left in ecstasy but no” until he had made a date with Miss Grady. “Gee!” said he to his conductor, “For once I’ve met a girl who’s not too tall!”
Rooney ended up a brief fling, and she was after bigger fish. She was, for a time, the swain of the much older John Barrymore, legendary actor of the illustrious family, but a very troubled drunk. They would go to the Florentine Gardens,where they knew the impresario, Niels T. Grauman. Blanche used to be a great sport, and once she won a bottle of champagne by singing for the audience! But Barrymore was hardly the only leading man in her life. Almost every night, she was hitting hotspots like the Biltmore Bowl, Lymans, and the Hollywood Tropics with names like Percy Melville, Argentine millionaire Macoco, actor Don Alvarado, Producer Raphael Hakim (who, columnists gleefully noted, was half a head shorter than her) and Al Herd.
Blanche also did her bit for the war effort. She got together a group of girls to sew socks and sweaters for the navy. She’s calling her organization “The Knit-Wits.”
Blanche is a good example of “Was it worth it?” column. Was it smart to make herself look like a dumb blonde? Was it a valid technique that just did not work for her? So many questions! I don’t know what to say, as there were actresses that utilizes the dumb blonde routine quite well, but somehow I can’t see this being a very smart career move. When you rely on a gimmick, usually it lasts for only a short time, and in the end you don’t get what you wanted. This story repeats itself with so many actresses I profiled.
After her career in movies did not pan out quite the way she expected it, Blanche returned to New York to continue her modeling career, plus to try her hand at musical and regional theater. There, she was in a serious relationship with the much older George F. Trommer, 67-year-old president of the Evergreen Brewery, later known as John F. Trommer, Inc. Despite the huge age gap between them, the relationship laster from 1943 up until 1946. Blanche also performed on Broadway in the early 1940s, notably in productions like Du Barry Was a Lady and Keep ‘Em Laughing.
Next we know, Blanche was married to L. Gerald Firth, on May 8, 1848, in Glen Cove, New York. Lewis Gerald was born in Pittsburgh, PA on July 4, 1919, to a prestigious family in the steel trade, and attended Shadyside Academy, St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire before graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After serving in the Navy Special Services for Anti-Submarine Warfare, he settled in Roslyn Harbor, L.I. where he worked as a consulting engineer in water distribution systems for the Bristol Company.
The couple lived in Oyster Bay, Nassau, with Blanche traveling to Europe frequently, but the union was terminated by 1952 and Firth remarried in 1953. Blanche completely falls of the radar, and I have no idea what happened to her.
Allegedly, Blanche died in 2003, but I could not find any more information about where and what was her surname even then. As always, I hope she had a soon life!
The lovely Elizabeth Jenns was a true born and bred English Rose, with a wonderfully peachy complexion and a beautiful heart-shaped face. Also a member of the English aristocracy, she had a jumping board to make it in Hollywood that most actresses can only dream about – she was signed by David Selznick, and he poured serious money into making her a star – but Liz chose matrimony over cinematic fame. Let’s learn more about her!
EARLY LIFE
Elizabeth Jenns was born Muriel Elizabeth Jenns (some sources refer to her birth name as Agnes Elizabeth Jenns) in January 1911 in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England, UK, to Alfred Jenns and Alice Eddy. She had an older sister, Marjorie, born in 1908. She was from a prominent landed gentry family. Her father, Alfred, had a manufacture in the carpet industry (Kidderminster is a town historically prominent for carpet manufacturing).
Elizabeth grew up in a wealthy, happy family, and was an active member of the local high society. She was educated in London, and groomed for a life of garden parties and social calls and marrying a wealthy man. However, by the late 1920s, Jenns were in trouble. Her father lost a great deal of money, and his carpet business, like many other local businesses in Kidderminster, had gone bust. This put a serious dent in his health, and pretty soon, Alfred was at death’s door, unable to work and needing support… It was during that time that Elizabeth was sitting in a restaurant, inconsolable, when a theatrical producer noticed her, and, impressed by her beauty and poise, offered her a chance to become an actress or a model to alleviate her problems. Elizabeth would later say that “Life looked unpromising… As for the movies, they were not even a remote possibility.”, but this work was better than no work, so she jumped into it reluctantly.
Thus Elizabeth began her professional career as an actress, and finding work lacking, turned to what many actresses did to earn some money – becoming a model. She was working in London in the late 1920s, and pretty soon picking up the ropes and meeting major success in the field. In 1930, she went to New York City to model for Victor Stiebel, a famous designer. She loved the city, and stayed there for several months before returning home, this time with plans to become an actress. In 1932, she appeared in the West End production of Noël Coward’s revue Words and Music at the Adelphi Theatre.
So, how did Elizabeth land in Hollywood? David O. Selznick was thumbing through the pages of the Harper’s Bazaar magazine when he happened on the photograph of a striking beauty who had been discovered by the camera watching the tennis matches at Wimbledon. Impressed, Selznick cabled his agents in London to learn the girl’s identity. There followed an exciting transatlantic game of hide and seek, so to speak. The persistent young producer kept after her and in the end learned she had gone to New York. The much sought young woman turned out to be Elizabeth, a well-known figure in the social world of New York, London and the Continent, member of a family of British gentle folk with a country seat in Worcestershire. She was at once placed under option and asked to come to Hollywood. Tests were made. The results were so successful that Mr. Selznick decided to sign her. There, she joined such impressive actresses like Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, Vivien Leigh and Joan Fontaine who were under his roster (maybe not all at that period, but at some point in time or another).
CAREER
Liz started her movie career in Channel Crossing, a low budget but pretty interesting thriller. While not the best of the bunch, it’s morally ambiguous (can’t find that easily in Hollywood of the late 30s and 40s, that’s for sure, due to the Code) and features a string of really good English actors of the period.
Over the next two years, Elizabeth took on supporting roles in several low budget English productions. In 1934, she portrayed Mildred in The Fortunate Fool, where she actually had a role that was not a stand in nor a background player! It’s a fluffy movie about a wealthy writer who, while searching for inspiration, houses two homeless people, a former boxer and a salesgirl. He falls in for the salesgirl, and Liz plays the high society woman who wants them apart. She then played Blossom in Leave It to Blanche, a movie about the titular Blanche, a meddling friend of a young married couple. When Peter, the husband, forgets their anniversary, to punish him Blanche persuades his wife to invent a secret lover. And drama ensures!
That same year, she appeared in Love, Life & Laughter credited as Actress in a small role. This is a typical Gracie Fields movie, thin on the story and the characters and rich on music and vivacity! Gracie is the only true selling point here, and she should be – her leading man is the very handsome but wooden John Loder, and the story is a bit of a cliche (Gracie meets a Prince – just this one is poor!). In 1935, she played Leonora Allway in Full Circle (about a thief who breaks into a house and steals a will, then steals it again in order to give it to a pretty young heiress). Then there was Liz as The Princess in Jimmy Boy, about an elevator attendant at a London hotel foils a gang of spies. All three were simple but solid comedies made by the bucketload in the period. So far, Liz had not made a truly groundbreaking movie but her beauty catapulted her to Hollywood.
In 1937, Elizabeth appeared in a Star is born, and is an enduring classic today, the first original movie that spanned several very high profile remakes (Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand and Lady Gaga played Janet Gaynor’s role!). We all know the story of a career going up (hers) and a career going down (his). Liz played Frederic March’s love interest before he meets Janet’s character. Liz was cool, chic and very beautiful in the role – everything Selznick wanted. This role was was supposed to be her great entrance into Hollywood, but alas, it ended up her last movie.
That was it from Elizabeth!
Personal life
Elizabeth came from landed gentry so she was no stranger to local Worcestershire polite society from birth, but she truly became a staple and a major elements of the Bright young things society of London in the early 1930s. This was after her return from New York, and allegedly she dated many a handsome bachelors. She had at least one serious engagement before she left for Hollywood in 1935, but I could not find any information on this, and I would love to know more about Elizabeth’s romantic liaisons during this time! If anybody has any information, please share! Allegedly, after Selznick found her in 1935, she chose a film career in preference to marriage with the disconsolate boy friend she left behind in England. Who was the unhappy fellow? I hope he moved on. Another interesting tidbit – although we all know that Wallis Simpson was the love of his life, allegedly king Edward VIII. also had a long fling with Elizabeth, starting when he was the Prince of Wales! They danced many a times in the famous clubs of the time, like Kit Kat, and both enjoyed each others company. The papers tried to connect them as a amorous couple, specially after Edward was crowned in January 1936, but it seems it never was a serious relationship on either side, just a bit of harmless fun, very typical for the London set of the time.
When Elizabeth landed in Hollywood in late 1935, signed with Mr. Selznick, she caused a great splash, plus Sleznick used all the might of his PR machine to stand behind her and taut her as the next best thing to come out of the UK. Here are the typical newspaper plants about her from that time:
WATCH OUT for the screen future of Elizabeth Jenns, British import. The tests I saw of her indicate she is a Marlene Dietrich, a Joan Crawford, and a million dollars rolled into one.
And this one two, which is very open in the fact that Selznick spared no expenses in pushing Liz towards the stars;
Seldom have we heard so many complimentary things said about any newcomer to Hollywood as have reached this desk about Elizabeth Jenns.
But Liz knew how to play the game too. She rented a lavish Beverly Hills home, and threw herself into the Hollywood society with gusto, well aware it is not only the talent, but the connexions that make the career. In a very short time, with Selznick’s money , her own societal savvy plus her background in being a part of the landed gentry, Liz became a prominent hostess in Hollywood. All of this was magnified by the fact that she had brought a background of distinguished social position from New York and London to Hollywood’s smart set, so a merry band of people mix and merged at her parties from European nobility to New York bluebloods to actors and actresses.
Man wasted no time in trying to snag the pretty English rose. She became very close to Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, one of the ultimate bachelors of the time, and dated him for a few months in the early 1936. In the meantime, Selznick cast Liz in A star is born, and she filmed the movie, and I wonder if the had an affair with Frederic March, who was a known lothario who liked to charm his leading ladies. Possibly not, but who knows! Selznick had other plans for his brand new shiny star, but alas, fate had other plans. By the end of the year, Liz would be out of the Hollywood acting game. How?
Well, the most typical answer is the correct one. She married and left acting. Liz charmed the good fellow, then returned to UK in June 1936 for a short break, and she after she landed in the US once more, it was engagement and wedding planning time. Elizabeth married socialite Harry Crocker on October 17, 1936. The wedding was held at an castle in Wales, St. Donat’s, owned by William Randolph Hearst. The wedding was a masterclass in transatlantic glamour. Elizabeth walked down the aisle in a stunning tulle and chiffon gown with a flowing veil, accompanied by her sister and Marion Davies as bridesmaids.
The ceremony was held in a small, intimate church lit only by oil lamps and candles, where local village women joined in singing hymns. Afterward, the celebration moved to the castle’s Library, where the Cymric Glee of Taibach choir performed traditional Welsh songs from a medieval gallery. According to one choir member’s memoir, the “Yanks” in the audience—a mix of American film stars and British aristocracy—were particularly vociferous in their applause. The night ended in true Hearst fashion: the choir was invited to join the guests for a “whale of a time” fueled by caviar and champagne.
Now a bit more about the groom. Harry Crocker, a name all but forgotten today, was far more than a socialite. Born into the wealthy San Francisco family behind the transcontinental railroad, he traded a potential law career at Yale for the an actor’s life in Hollywood in 1924. Though he began as an actor in silent classics like The Big Parade and La Bohème, Crocker found his true calling behind the scenes. A close confidant of William Randolph Hearst, he authored the respected industry column “Behind the Makeup” for over two decades, and became Heart’s private secretary. However, Crocker is best remembered as the fiercely loyal right-hand man to Charlie Chaplin. He served as an assistant director and actor in The Circus (1928) and City Lights (1931). Throughout Chaplin’s later controversies and political exile, Crocker remained one of the comedy legend’s most steadfast defenders, using his journalistic influence to stand by his friend when much of Hollywood had turned away.
Liz gave up on movies, and sailed with her husband back to Hollywood to start her life of the local social matron. And for the next few years, Liz did just that, The marriage lasted until their divorce on August 29, 1939. In October 1939, wed Gardner Clarence Carpenter, a diplomat from a prominent San Francisco family. Fully named Gardner Clarence Carpenter—known to friends as “Carp”—was born in Colorado Springs and raised in San Mateo, California. He was the son of Lewis Gibbs Carpenter and Helen Violet Gardner.
His life was paved with high-society credentials He attended the elite Los Alamos Ranch School and Hotchkiss before heading to Yale University. A natural athlete, he rowed on the Vanderbilt Crew as a freshman and sophomore and earned a minor “Y” as a member of the University Tennis Team. At Yale, he majored in history, was a member of Timothy Dwight College, and belonged to the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. Long before his life with Elizabeth, Carpenter showed a keen interest in world affairs and journalism. In 1934, he contributed a serious article regarding Nazi labor camps to the English magazine The Listener.
As the war started just before their marriage, this dominated their married life. Since Gardner worked in diplomacy, he was deeply into the Washington scene at the time and privy to many things. Their son, Christopher, was born in about 1940. I don’t have too much details, but know that Liz went back to the UK sometimes in 1944, when most of the war in Europe was finished. There, she gave birth to a daughter, Deidre, in 1945.
After the war, little was written about Liz. She and her family reportedly resided in China for a period in the late 1940s, due to Carpenter’s job, where he was named vice-consul in Saigon. At some point, probably due to the children’s education, Liz and the kids moved to Paris, while Gardner remained in Saigon. It was during a stop over in Paris, en route to the Washington, that Carpenter committed suicide by overdose of sleeping pills on March 7, 1952. It was a great shock to the diplomatic community and all who knew him. Gardner left 12000$ in his trust fund for Liz and their two children.
After Gardner Carpenter’s death, Liz relocated back to the US, to Wisconsin to be more precise, and spent her remaining years there in private retirement. Liz stayed out of the public eye with no known professional activities, public appearances, or engagements, and I would not find any information about her in the newspapers. She resided in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, during this time.
Elizabeth Carpenter died on January 11, 1967, in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin.
She was known as “Madcap” Merry Fahrney. Whoa! While I am a fan of interesting, of the beaten path and outside-the-box women who had the money to defy society and survive it, some of them do not seem to have been happy people with well lived lives. Merry is one of these girls. When you read about her biography, you’ll get the picture. Merry was an heiress who married eight times and otherwise seemed to emulate the “screwball comedies” so popular in her heyday, but with lots and lots of excess and … Well, make your own conclusions, but hopefully we can be happy the period of such heiresses is behind us. Or is it? Let’s learn more about her!
EARLY LIFE
Mary Elizabeth Fahrney wasborn on February 11, 1910, in Chicago, Illinois, to Emery Homer Fahrney and Marion Louisa Hills, their younger daughter. Her older sister was Myrtle, born on July 2, 1906. Her father was a scion of a wealthy family, born in Maryland, the son of Dr. Peter Fahrney. Emery was a successful businessman and inventor in Chicago, involved in his father’s proprietary medicine company, Peter Fahrney & Sons. The million came from a cough syrup that was widely used in the US at the time. Mary grew up in a big brick house at 400 N. Euclid Ave. in Oak Park.
From her high-school days, at Oak Park and River Forest High School, she had a talent for attracting publicity. She drove fast cars, she danced, she laughed and she flirted, lightly and for the joy of flirting. Oak Park boys adored her, but she broke dates and laughed at all of them—the beginning of a lifelong obsession with the stronger sex. In 1928, when she was 17, she learned to fly a plane against her parents’ wishes. In 1930 she took up skydiving. Merry did it her way or no way! Then she got married… Read the rest at the Private life passage. (Also, I will call her Merry from now on, although she only changed her name legally in 1933)
CAREER
Merry wanted to be a proper actress, and when she went to Hollywood in 1935, she was quickly cast, via her connections, in Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra. This legendary movie with Claudette Colbert could have been a jumping pad for Merry to make something more out of her curiosity (and what a joyride it could have been, with her financial stability, she could have worked how and when she wanted, not be at the mercy of mercurial studio bosses) but alas the strains of filming were too much for the poor girl. She could not get up early enough, and hated standing for hours as an extra while the scenes were filmed. Thus, she is barely even credited for the movie.
But what Merry did was wreak havoc in Hollywood – when she left Tinseltown for good, behind her were several court suits for assertedly unpaid clothing bills, for rental stated to have been unpaid for costumes, for unpaid press agent services, and other things. I hope she sorted it all out, as it seems some decent, hard working people had to suffer financial injustice just because a wealthy heiress wanted a bit of ballyhoo and then disappeared.
And that was it from Merry in terms of movies!
PRIVATE LIFE
Oho, now we come into Merry’s domain! While her career was paper thin, this is where she shone her big, extra histrionic light! This sentence should tell you what character traits Merry had in spades… But let’s start from the beginning! I will divide this into chapters to make the reading a bit easier. This is a long, long post, as Merry quite a hectic life!
EARLY DRAMA
Before we delve deeply into the chronology, rumors about her lifestyle abounded for decades, and they are pretty outrageous, even for our society today. Namely, for most of her life, Merry had three personal maids who served her breakfast in bed, dressed her and acted as her live-in valets. She usually ate lunch and dinner in bed as well. The latter with champagne and her current lover. Her black silk sheets were legendary. Her bathroom was rumored to contain a refrigerator just for her cosmetics. And so on. You get the idea.
Merry made news for all the wrong reasons in 1930. Details, and WARNING, this is a pretty sad story:
On the morning of July 6, 1930, it all began when a ditzy 20-year-old patent medicine heiress by the name of “Madcap” Merry Fahrney, a gal with far more money than sense, decided she would learn parachuting that day. Fahrney was already an aviatrix, and her family had a summer home as well as an airplane field and an engine manufacturing firm near Oshkosh, WI. Oshkosh today is famous for being the site of the great annual fly-in for the Experimental Aircraft Association aka EAA, the principal aviators’ group for cutting-edge and vintage planes. Back then, however, it was a small town surrounded by a rural area with some fashionable summer homes.
It would be Merry Fahrney’s first jump that day. Fahrney went up without an instructor or trainer, only her pilot L.F. Kline – something that would never be allowed today and probably wasn’t the smartest move even back then. The plan was for Merry to jump once the plane hit an altitude to 1,000 feet above the airport. She jumped, all right – but her chute got tangled on the wing, leaving crazy Merry dangling under her plane, unable to get free.
Schustek and his friend and fellow pilot, Charles ‘Bud’ Geiger, were both at the airport that day and saw the heiress’s dangerous predicament. Of course, there weren’t any proper rescue protocols for such a calamity. Schustek and Geiger devised a simple but perilous plan: Geiger would fly his plane and get just above Kline’s plane, and Schustek would climb down a secured rope and try to free Fahrney’s chute form the wing. Schustek had no safety harness, no backup chute of his own, no nothing. And by the time he began climbing down that rope toward Fahrney and her hung-up chute, he and the girl were both about 600 feet above the ground. More than enough to die if either fell.
Bottom line: Fahrney’s parachute was freed, though no one was quite sure how, and she dropped safely to the ground. Some accounts suggest that the parachute freed itself; others say Schustek managed to detach it. Schustek, on the other hand, tried to climb back up to his own aircraft – but exhausted by his efforts, he slipped and fell instead to his death, in front of horrified onlookers.
The official cause of death was a fractured skull. The real cause, of course, was Schustek’s inexperience in such a rescue and the lack of appropriate equipment – and Merry Fahrney’s ill-advised attempt to parachute the first time without an instructor there to check out her chute in advance and walk her through the process. On reaching solid ground, Fahrney’s first words were reportedly, “Wasn’t it all just too thrilling!” Thus, the ditz appellation. There is no evidence as to whether her remark preceded or followed her rescuer’s fall to his death – or whether she ever expressed any regret at the death of her rescuer.
FIRST MARRIAGE
What to say, Merry obviously has scant respect for a man who gave her life to save her from what was a folly that could have been easily avoided. But anyway, the string of disasters were just to start! In May 1931 Merry married her first husband, Chicagoan Hugh Parker-Pickering. Hugh was born in 1905, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to a well to do family. For a time, he lived lived in Los Angeles and was well acquainted with the Tinsel town social set. He married actress June Zier in 1929, but the tempestuous union was terminated in 1930.
Merry was left pregnant almost immediately after the wedding, and had a son, Peter, born on November 25, 1931 (who was later adopted by Merry’s parents, as Merry hardly had the time to deal with a child). Despite the new found marital bliss, the marriage was doomed to fail. Merry was restless and wanted more drama in her life, and Hugh liked the high life more than spending time with family. The inevitable happened. The couple divorced on September 27, 1932, on grounds of cruelty. Merry waived alimony. They remained on friendly terms, and Merry was great friends with Charlotte “Chotty” Milburn, whom Hugh married just two months after the divorce was made final.
FAKE COUNT
But the drama had just begun and I think nobody knew how scandalous it was to become! 1933 was a momentous year for Merry, and here is the whole story! That year, Merry was only 22 years old (she also changed her name to Merry, and we shall call her like that from now on), and was a wealthy divorcee with a $1.5 million inheritance and a taste for the histrionic. It seems an inherent part of her psyche was simply trying out new things, looking for thrills, and not being bored in any way or form. And what better than an -over-the-top, passionate love story! Enter George di Georgio, a man she believed was a dashing Italian Count. In reality, the “Count” was what the police called a “wasp-waisted impersonator.” While he was wooing Merry in a posh Manhattan hotel, detectives discovered he was actually an Italian immigrant who had left a wife and child behind in Chile. He wasn’t noble; he was just “on the make.”
As the Bureau of Criminal Alien Investigation closed in with a deportation warrant, the “Count” didn’t stick around to say goodbye. He hopped on a fruit liner headed for South America, allegedly taking thousands of dollars’ worth of Merry’s jewels and cash with him. But instead of feeling robbed, Merry was devastated. She followed him to Chicago, not to hide in shame, but to beg her parents for $1,000 (roughly $23,000 today) to buy a plane ticket to Chile. The scene at the LaSalle St. Station was pure tabloid gold. Merry was seen “sniffling” and “stamping her foot,” accusing her parents of being “anti-foreigner” and threatening to end her life if she couldn’t be with her man. She fully believed George’s story: that he only went back to Chile to “finalize a divorce” so they could be together. Meanwhile, the family attorney and the police were busy uncovering the paper trail of his long-distance calls to his secret wife and his involvement in shady bond deals. It was a classic case of an heiress blinded by a title—even one that was totally made up.
Merry seemed to have been so much in love, so into Giorgi that literally nothing could tear them apart, not even his shenanigans! Well, wrong! Literally five days after all this mess, Merry got married to another guy! Yes people, I am not joking. The date was November 10, and the happy fellow was a Chicago society man, Frank Sands Van Eiszner. They had eloped from Chicago to Aurora, Illinois for a quicky ceremony with a small group of people. So, Merry did get her and were returning to their home when their automobile overturned, killing the bridegroom’s brother, Donald Sands van Eiszner, who was just a college student. The marriage thus started with a real-life tragedy, and unfortunately things did not get much better. Just a few months later, in February 1934, Merry was seeking an annulment, claiming she was under influence of “certain liquids” when she married Frank. She complained she did not know what she was doing in marriage ceremony. The annulment was granted, and Merry was free to go.
CHICAGO YEARS
Both Frank and Giorgi swiftly forgotten, Merry wasted no time in looking for hubby No. 3. In early 1935, she went to Rome to meet her renegade Romeo, Di Giorgio, but that did not pan out. Back in the US; went to Miami, renting cottage at Nautilus Hotel for the winter. The original reason for this was her “crush” on boxer Max Baer, who was stationed there at the time, but he was not interested in pursuing a romantic liaison with Merry. She then switched to Phil Wood, of the Gar Wood clan. Next was Norman Kerry, then George Marshall, then a famous actor who broke her heart by returning to Hollywood. Merry was also in legal hot water – she was ordered to pay $1,291,45 to a New York firm for one of her trousseaux, and she also neglected to pay for undies, negligees and expensive perfumes she bought in 1933. I can’t really understand why this was happening – Merry assuredly had the money, so why all the not-paying stuff? But that is Madcap for you. Merry also gave her beauty hint:
My only exercise is dancing, I and am fond of starches and sweets. Such foods are tabu to the average girl who wants to keep slim, but if your problem is to put on a few pounds they can be enjoyed in safety.
Lucky girl, slim by design. Not long after, Merry was noted saying she would marry a Chicago man who would go tiger hunting with her, but she refused to name the gentlemen and the press went wild with potential names for her wannabe fiance. Then, we get the details: The gentleman was Deering Davis. Deering was a member of the harvester family. He fell so madly in love that he proposed marriage 822 times, according to Merry and reporters who kept score. The new apartment became the scene of merriment until Merry’s father jerked the purse strings again. That, however, failed to stop the gay night parties. Merry’s credit at the hotel was good, and the B.Y.O.D. sign was hung up, meaning “Bring Your Own Drinks.” One evening, when the liquid refreshment was running low, someone had an idea. Since Merry’s credit was good why not order great quantities of food from the hotel and barter it for drinks? So Tommy Murray, a faithful retainer, was sent out staggering under loads of caviar, anchovies, olives and such things and returned with bottles. BUT while all this was gay and exciting, Merry was becoming bored and, after Deering proposed for the 822d time, she announced her intention of organizing a party to hunt tigers in Indo-China. Her father but her funding due to her preposterous behavior (finally!)
Merry left Deering, and caused a stir by passionately kissing actor Ian Keith, but denied she was dating him. Sly! Just when you think maybe Merry should take it easy, as her money was going to run out without her funding, the opposite happens! Merry went to court to sue Edward Monaco, a banker, for cancellation of her agreement to sell her $125,000 inheritance for $30,000. Allegedly, he gave her the $30,000 in cash right away, and in return he would take the inheritance she would get when her aunt died. I don’t know what Merry was thinking when she made those choices. Did she really need the money that bad? Maybe I was wrong, maybe she truly was not liquid enough. While Judge Joseph. Sabath was disposing of another witness he observed her smoking in the rear of the courtroom. He sent a bailiff to bring her to the bench, and warned Merry that smoking was not permitted in the courtroom. can’t say Merry didn’t do it her way, even in a courtroom.
The suit ongoing, Merry went on Lake Butte des Morts where her parents have a summer home to relax. She went on a boat day trip, and ended up in a hospital recovering from a bad case of sun burn. But Merry refuses to delay the court proceedings, and literally left the hospital next day to return to the courtroom. After some tit and tat, the litigation was finally terminated, with Monaco returning to Merry her assignment to him of her $125,000 share in the estate of her uncle, the late William H. Fahrney. Monaco also had to drop the $50,000 suit for defamation of character which he brought against Merry after she charged that he duped her into signing the assignment and failed to pay the $30,000 which she alleged he promised her. Merry managed to get her way this time!
Not long after, there was another scuffle with law enforcement and courts – just after her court case was dismissed, Merry met CharlesVoboril and dated him a few times. But he was more into her than she was into him – was SO persistent a suitor (writing her several hundred letters and so on) that Merry became annoyed, and had him arrested by Chicago police. Voboril is a night watchman at a Chicago race track, where the two met. And now listen to this – his lawyer defended Voboril with these words: “In days of old, poets wrote sonnets to lady loves they had never seen. Petrarch had his Laura; Dante his Beatrice; Shakespeare his Ann Hathaway. “This man is a modern Boccaccio. He has devised a revolutionary method of lovemaking from afar. From reports of her beauty, Miss Fahrney is a fit subject for such distant worship.” Ha ha ha ha, now Merry was as put together with some august company! Sadly, the Voboril died just a few months later in traffic accident.
Next we heard, she had plans to wed a certain G. Palmer and dwell in China (where he lived), but that amounted to nothing. Then, in October, Merry’s father died, and two months later, her sister Myrtle was declared insane (she had a split personality diagnosis) and put into an asylum. It seems this was a hard time for Merry, but this did not dampen her enthusiasm for dating. In December 1935, she was almost engaged to Prince Yucca Troubetzkoy, Russian noble and ex-movie actor. In early 1937, Merry went to Europe, to Italy to be more precise. She returned in February and continued her extravagant life, and sold her inheritance once again, this time to a completely different banker!
ITALIAN COUNT
But the reason Merry catapulted into major PR stardom (of the time), and that she appeared in hundreds upon hundreds of articles that year, was the fact that she married an Italian count on July 31, 1937. The lucky hubby No.3 was “Baron Arturo Berlingiere”, whom she met in Rome and who didn’t speak English. At the time her marriage was disclosed a few days later, they were already apart, and he baron was enroute with chauffeur and automobile to California, and Merry was in Chicago, ready to join him in Los Angeles. As a proper Contessa, Merry became a bona fide legend in the US, and it seems that the Baron himself did not interest Merry in any other capacity except as a titled, exotic nobleman.
They were together in California for exactly six weeks before she filed for divorce in September, citing cruelty. She noted three “breaking points” for the marriage. First one, in Los Angeles, Merry tried to explain in broken French that Arturo shouldn’t drive her car due to insurance reasons. She claims his fury resulted in her getting a black eye. A few days later, while having breakfast, a waiter addressed her as “Miss Fahrney.” Arturo allegedly snapped, “Don’t forget that you are my wife and some day you will be a baroness!” before knocking her out of her chair. The last straw was when Arturo stormed into her room while she was having her hair done and hit her so hard he drove a hairpin into her scalp.
She also told the press her husband asked for “several thousand dollars” immediately after the wedding. I guess the guy finally realized he was used for his titles, so he wanted his due. They were in court for several months, and the Baron was even in danger of being deported right back to Italy, and on top of it all, Merry’s divorce attorney sued her for non-payment (he asserted Merry, had promised him a total of $2,500 for getting a divorce from Hugh Parker Pickering, husband No. 1, and filing a divorce petition against Baron, but she had paid only $200)! This reads like a high society comedy more than real life, but that was Merry for you!
But wait, there is more. The divorce suit became a proper media circus, and for good cause. Listen to this:
Disguised as a half dozen of her honeymoon gowns, Merry Fahrney fled from her Los Angeles hotel In a trunk last September, her friends disclosed, today. Their story came out just in time to overshadow that of her third bridegroom, Baron Arthur Berlingieri, about the quarrels that ended the moon. Merry wasn’t running away from the baron, because they had already separated. She was running away from the men her friends said had been sent to surround her hotel and hand her summons in the $150,000 damage suit the baron had filed. The Baron charged she had injured me good name by refusing to live with him. The Oak Park heiress just tossed the gowns out, as the story told, jumped into the evening, trunk and pulled the lid down. Then she had herself hauled away to a railroad station and put on 8 o’clock train. When the train was out of the court’s jurisdiction she surprised the baggage crew by popping out. Then she went into a coach and bought herself a ticket. The baron told his story in the office of Merry’s attorney, Frank E. Cantwell, in a deposition preparatory to the hearing of Merry’s suit for divorce, tentatively set for Monday. The baron said they quarreled and separated immediately after the marriage.
This went on and on, plus Merry always had a court suit somewhere on the side, mostly connected to her non-payments and the battle for her inheritance. But, not to be deterred by simple judicial goings on, Merry had time to date handsome Argentine banker, Louis Reis. However, she had to slow down a great deal after an operation in January 1938, that kept her bedridden for a few months. But, people came to her! Merry slowly started to expand her net of influence, and bought residences in New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles, and started mingling with the high society there, looking for some new kicks, as always.
RUSSIAN COUNT
One thing Merry has a soft spot were titles, and she was determined to upgrade from the Conte. Her next conquest was another Italian, Count Gaballini. And then… The upgrade finally came! Via marriage to Count Oleg Cassini, who is well known to any vintage clothes lover! Born to an exiled Russian family with Italian ancestry on his mother’s side (hence the surname Cassini). The family moved around, and settled in Italy. In Florence, he excelled as an athlete and equestrian, and launched his early career in fashion by winning major design competitions in Turin and opening his first boutique in Rome. In 1936, he immigrated to the United States with very few possessions, eventually arriving in New York. if only Oleg knew what was coming to him?
He would become the husband of Gene Tierney, couturier for Jackie Kennedy, a legendary figure all around, and live way into the 21st century. Well before he was all of this, he was married for a very short time to our Merry, from 1938 until 1940 (spoiled alert, but is it really? She divorced them all!). In his autobiography, Cassini was bitter, almost venomous towards Merry, calling her a ruthless, cold blooded opportunist. She didn’t love him at the least, and he was spellbound by her lavish ways. Merry spend a great deal of time with various hangers-on, including Hugh Pickering, her first husband, and barely had any time for Cassini as it was. Cassini felt like he was not properly married, plus she insisted he quit his job as a dressmaker, but then gave him no money, which put him in a financial bind. Oleg’s brother, the chatty social columnist Igor Cassini, did not like her much but found Merry amusing and acknowledged her as one of the dying breed of dizzy-headed heiresses. They had several serious clashes later on, in the 1940s and 50s, when Merry became Igor’s favorite target in his columns, but she sure gave them more than enough meat!
She got entangled with socialite Sonny Griswold and they revealed their plan to travel to the Orient to study yoga. That cracked me up, and predictably it never happened. By October, she ditched Sonny for Billy Livingston. Then she tried to sell her inheritance again, and was sued over it, AGAIN! But, let’s not forget, Merry had to do what she did best. Shed men.
Merry decided to ditch Oleg in May 1939, a bit more than six months after their wedding ceremony. And what a way to divorce a hubby! Merry made a setup for Oleg, putting him in the company of another woman in his apartment at the Lowell Hotel in New York. Interestingly, Fahrney and her first husband, Hugh Pickering, were reported to have been in a hotel room with a car salesman spying on the couple. Cassini, for his part, denied any wrongdoing and attempted to prove through various testimonies that his wife had had extramarital affairs (so very much true!).
While the divorce was raging in the courts, another wildcard appeared, a man who, to Merry’s detriment, knew too much! It was her butler! During a testimony, he revealed very colorful details of her private lives to the public, including her romping around with three men at the same time, and that she preferred very much transparent nightgowns. This was a huge, huge story in the press, and Merry was featured in hundreds of almost lurid newspaper articles painting her a semi-scarlet woman. While I generally don’t agree with Merry’s lifestyle in this regard, a horrible chauvinist undercurrent was visible in all of this reporting, and I would be the first to defend her simply because she did not deserve to her berated over this. In a world where powerful people steal, cheat and kill on a massive scale, Merry Fahrney is the problem? Please, no! But, then we get to another caveat emptor in regards to who Merry truly was…
SPY!!!
Merry was allegedly quite sharp and smart, but unfocused, jumbled and, as people would say kindly, a bit of a wacko. Her personal beliefs were typical of that time and of her class, and would not have been met with admiration today. How do we know this? Well, to put it simply, Merry was a Nazi sympathizer. Many people were back then, before the horrors of WW2 (unfortunately, some remained even after all the atrocities, but this is a discussion for another debate). In typical Madcap Merry style, she took her Nazi leaning way a notch up. How? Well, in 1938, Merry became a German spy. You heard that right, she did. While she was courting and married Oleg, Merry started a liaison to German ambassador Scholz, and told him outright, on their very first date, she wanted to spy for Nazi Germany. He, in turn, introduced her to Heribert von Strempel, who was chief political officer of the German Embassy in Washington until December 1941. Strempel fell for Merry, she fell for him, but that did not diminish her undercover work. “She was especially effective,” Strempel wrote of Merry later, “thanks to her prominent position in American public life, in establishing contact for me with influential American personalities who were politically or economically interested in Germany.”
Operating at the peak of German intelligence gathering in Washington, Merry served under the direction of Dr. Hans Thomsen, a premier diplomat for the Reich. While navigating a social circle of well-connected friends, her overt pro-Nazi sympathies were largely overlooked by peers who viewed them as the mere eccentricities of a wealthy, pampered heiress. Despite her lack of discretion and a “excessive” style of espionage that eventually drew the attention of the FBI, she was regarded as an incredibly productive and useful operative. As federal surveillance intensified and her position in the U.S. became too dangerous, Dr. Thomsen advised her to relocate her fortune to Argentina, where she could continue her clandestine activities without interference from American law enforcement.
Leave behind her lavish lifestyle in the US? Would Merry be up to the task? Alas, another hidden condition was a deciding factor. Merry was madly, madly in love with Strempel, who was very much married to a lady from an aristocratic family, living back in Germany. She was also romantically connected to another German spy, Dr. Manfred Zapp, but Strempel was her real heart. While Merry was very flingy with her interests, including men, Strempel was one of the few that stayed more than a few fleeting moments, and it seems Merry quite liked the fellow. However, Strempel left his post just before US entered WW2 and went to Argentina. When Thomsen told her to move, it was just the icing on the cake. With Strempel gone, there was no reason to remain in the US. Merry threw it all away to follow her errant boyfriend.
However, in November of 1941, the US government denied Merry a passport, and thus she was unable to follow Strempel. Undeterred, Madcap merely married a Swedish-born waiter. Nils Kurt Holm, who was working in New York. The two were married by a part-time justice of the peace and full-time grocery-store-owner in Cheraw, South Carolina. No sooner were the vows exchanged she allegedly didn’t even kiss the groom than Merry had applied for and received a Swedish passport. Then, Merry filed for divorce after only 17 days of marriage and paid him $1,500 for his trouble, money which he blew in Florida before returning to New York. She returned to Chicago to get the divorce. Superior Court Judge Rudolph F. Desort later suspected Holm had been badly used by Merry – she claimed Holm had beaten her when in fact he had barely had the time to say “I do.” Desort considered launching an investigation for fraud, as he knew Merry had not entered the union “in the spirit of marriage” in the first place. But the judge reconsidered, and Merry was not prosecuted. And then it was bon voyage, alone, with bags full of money and jewelry, to Buenos Aires and her boyfriend. That’s just the way she was.
SOUTH AMERICAN ADVENTURE
On December 7, 1941, when the Japanese dumped their bombs on Pearl Harbor, Merry, with 500,000 dollars just skipped across the border into Mexico. Fleeing the U.S. State Department and the F.B.I., she was hoping to skip all the mess by marrying Strempel and living together in Germany. First stop, Mexico. In Mexico City, Merry blew her U.S. bills about like rose petals. Some sleek young man caught them before they fell to the ground. But, except for the bulls and bullfighters, Mexico bored her. So she sewed her greenbacks into the lining of her mink coat and headed southwards. But moving wasn’t cheap. Merry paid 1,800 dollars duty on the hundreds of pairs of nylon stockings, beauty creams, and gowns which filled her 26 airborne trunks. Regretfully, she learned that Lati, the Italian transatlantic air line which would have taken her to Germany, had suspended its service.
Brazil awaited her. The Countess Cassini (as Merry was known in Brazil) plunged into the social whirl surrounding the Pan-American Conference then meeting in Rio. But when the conference pledged aid to the Allied cause and Brazil broke off relations with Germany and Italy, Merry decided to move on again. In Buenos Aires, Merry entertained society’s “lunatic fringe” in her handsome stone house in the swank Palermo Chico district. Seated on a hassock backed by a huge portrait of herself as an Oriental princess, she doled out champagne and nylons.
Meanwhile, in Buenos Aires, she caught up with Strempel, and wanted to continue spying. American officials suspected that she was aiding Nazi spies, and they revoked her passport. Merry denied the charge. Strempel eventually left Argentina, without Merry, a few months later, still married to his wife. Merry was undeterred, and continued living her typical high life, just on another continent and in a new country. However, by late 1943, Merry found herself in financial distress in Buenos Aires after her U.S. fortune was frozen by the Federal Reserve Bank due to her ties with Nazi officials. When she left for South America, Merry publicly blamed American press for her troubles and vowed never to return, but the failure of her various Argentine business ventures and her dwindling cash reserves left her desperate to return to the United States to access her $3,000,000 inheritance. However, Uncle Sam’s government remained resistant to her pleas, fearing any released funds might still find their way into Nazi hands.
MEXICAN HUBBY
But despite all the fuss, there was never any shortage of men around Merry! In 1944, she fell in love with Carlos Ojeda, son of the Mexican ambassador to Argentina. “This is the real thing this time,” she told reporters. As if, and I don’t think anybody believed her. The happy couple was married in a Buenos Aires cathedral in July, 1944. Her intention, she averred, was to settle down and cook and sew for Ojeda, who said he had fallen for her because of her cooking. Well, that did not last long, and nobody was shocked.
But it wasn’t pretty. Divorce usually are not, but this one was especially violent. Merry claimed she had been beaten by her sixth husband. Two Americans heard her screams and tried to rescue her. In doing so, they had shot Senor Ojeda in the shoulder. In October of 1946, she finally divorced Ojeda, calling their union “another passport marriage.” Merry continued living the life in Mexico, partying so much that once she got a shiner from a violent drunk, feuded with fellow socialite Nancy Oakes. In 1951, she was romantically linked to her old beau, Billy Revere, and real estate tycoon Ortez Dimero. She sold her inheritance again, and was to act in a Mexican movie bankrolled by a millionaire acquaintance of hers. She also lived in a lavish home, and again, there is even drama over her address. An article explains it:
The “siege of the Komas” ended this week. Merry Fahrney (The Baroness Berlingieri) refused to budge from her fortress at Livio 125 when her lease expired in March, until painters and carpenters vacated the new home she redecorated on Napoles. After weeks of delays, she moved out in the morning, bag and baggage, to her new address. No sooner had the last van left when Rita Guggenheim Saldana, former duena of the apartment, lost no time moving back into the mansion she leased a year ago to the Chicago patent medicine million heiress. Rita had good reason for her impatience. She will marry Antonio Lancaster Alvarez de Cuna, Count of Pontevel, next week.
OIL, OIL!
Merry was eventually permitted to return to the US, and what did she do? Of course, she got married! She eloped with Richard A. Greft, a previously married geologist and oil man. Greft, president of an Oklahoma City oil company, was divorced from the former Audrey Holmes, daughter of Swift Co. president John Holmes. Merry was quoted as saying: “As of this moment, this ‘madcap’ Merry episode is a thing of the past. All I want to do now is make Dick very happy.” Wish anybody could believe her! I don’t think even she believed it herself!
The happy couple honeymooned in Texas, and was quick to adopt her husband’s lifestyle – she went into the oil business. The Texas Secretary of State’s office issued a charter to the Fahrney Oil company of Houston, with capital stock totaling $1000. The oil firm was incorporated by by the company of her hubby, Richard.
Despite their joint business ventures, the marriage lasted literally four months. Merry sought a divorce in September of the same year, and again, there was drama and court proceeding involved – namely, news of the separation came only a few hours after her former chauffeur Charles Hicks reported his second aggravated assault charge in three weeks against Grest. Hicks said that Grest accosted him on a street and struck him “five or six times’ and threatened to kill the former chauffer. Three weeks ago, Hicks had complained that Grest beat for calling Merry “Fahrney” instead of Grest.” Hicks quit at the time of the first beating, but Grest would not let go. Since Merry had a similar situation with her Italian husband, (hubby no.3), it seems that these men had major problems with their wives being called by their maiden names, which is absurd, especially for somebody like Merry, who changed her surname almost on a yearly basis! But anyway, Merry and Richard were divorced that November. They had some tiffs over who gets their yacht, and this suit actually bought over a bigger question – was Merry legally a US citizen or not? Nobody could give a straight answer, and it had to be investigated in Washington DC.
SLOWLY… END END
By the end of the year, 1953, Merry already had number 8 planned, being charmed by an unnamed West coast wealthy cattleman. Nothing came out of it. In 1954, she was involved with an United Nations diplomat. For a man with such a pedigree and important status in the international community, dating her was quite… Unwise. Allegedly the gossip about the two caused excitement in the diplomats’ lounge at the United Nations. She also wrote a scandalous autobiography her family was very, very upset about, and she went into the casino business not long after. But just see this newspaper snippet:
Merry Fahrney, America’s most notorious madcap, is trying to peddle her memoirs, in which she tries painfully to pass herself off as an innocent little victim of circumstances, and not at all the callous marriage marathon champion that she has been depicted in the press. But the Fahrney woman, who has been married nine times, and is thinking of making it a decathlon, uses such scurrilous and libelous language that even the most scandalous mags have refused to touch any of the chapters she has tried to sell them-or even give them.
Whoa, Merry strikes again for sure. Merry spent most of the 1950s in Houston, living the high life. She sold all her furniture from her Mexico days and put behind all those unpleasantness. She falls off the newspaper radar, living a wee bit more quiet life. Alas, the world had changed from the 1930s, Merry’s crowning decade. Other things were of interest, and Merry and her brand of crazy were not quite it. Merry returned to live in New York in the 1960s. In 1969, she married for the last time, to Andre De Jomini, a man born in 1941. While the two never divorced, but they were separated in 1970. The woman who had once dangled from airplane wings, outrun the FBI in a trunk, and collected husbands like charms on a bracelet finally ran out of drama.
Merry Farhney deJomini died alone in her New York hotel room in March 28, 1974.
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A young and pretty Virginia debutante, Helaine Moler crashed Hollywood and actually had a better run than many starlets that only make appearances in two, three movies. Alas, after a few years, she gave up Hollywood for other venues. Let’s learn more about her!
EARLY LIFE
Mary Helen Moler was born on April 18, 1914, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Abraham Lincoln Moler and Margaret Reed Lewis. She was the youngest of five children, her older siblings being: Ida Mae Moler, Lincoln Hull Moler, Benjamin Franklin Moler, and Frank B. Moler. Helaine came from a illustrious family – via her father she a descendant of the first settlers at Harpers Ferry, and was a cousin of Cordell Hull, future Secretary of State.
Her mother was a distant relative of the Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame, and a niece of Former Governor John Hall of Deleware, Md. The family lived in Richmond, where Helaine grew up. She studied in Richmond at Miss Benson’s School for Girls and at John Marshall High School to which she admits she transferred for the honor of sponsoring the cadet corps.
In 1933 her father was appointed Western representative for General Petroleum, which required the family to relocate to Los Angeles. This move would prove pivotal in launching Helaine’s unexpected career in Hollywood. Helaine went to St. Catherine’s finishing school. There, never appeared in a theatrical performance, but she concentrated on art and dress designing, and wanted to work in fashion. It seemed like Helaine had no interest for movies nor acting, but her fate gently nudged her into another direction.
Helaine’s debut in pictures was accidental. She was named America’s model sports girl at the San Diego exposition and was given a contact for a talent scout. She called him, he in turn introduced Helaine to a casting director over the telephone because he was known to like Southern accents. He immediately invited her to do a bit in a scene. However, she nearly lost her first chance at being a movie actress due to her Southern accent. For one line, “You’ll find her in the garden,” she had practiced for hours to eliminate her Southern drawl. But when the scene was finally filmed, she was horrified to hear her voice declare distinctly: “You-all will find her in the garden.” However, she was so charming while doing it, that she was signed by Monogram, and off the went!
CAREER
NOTE: it seems that Helaine appeared in some movies not listed on her IMDB page. By reading some newspaper articles written in the day, it seems she appeared, before 1936, in several films including:
“Palm Springs” (with Frances Langford)
“Collegiate” (with Joe Penner and Jack Oakie)
“Mississippi” (with Bing Crosby)
So I can’t say that the list is complete, not by a long shot. However, Helaine never was credited, and she appeared in very very minor roles. On her IMDB page, many movies are listed, Too many movies to analyze them all, I will name but a few more notable ones for Helaine.
Big Brown Eyes (1936)
A crime-comedy thriller starring Cary Grant and Joan Bennett. The story follows a sharp-witted manicurist who teams up with a detective to uncover a jewel-theft ring and solve a murder.
Daughter of Shanghai (1937)
An action-crime film centered on a young woman searching for her missing father in Shanghai, becoming entangled with smugglers and international intrigue.
You and Me (1938)
Directed by Fritz Lang, this crime drama follows two former convicts trying to live honest lives while struggling with love, temptation, and society’s distrust.
Zaza (1938)
A romantic drama set in the world of theater and cabaret, starring Claudette Colbert. The film explores love, jealousy, and sacrifice within a glamorous yet crazy theater world.
The Big Broadcast of 1938
A musical variety film typical of late-1930s Hollywood, featuring multiple performers and musical numbers. We already mentioned several Big broadcast movies on this blog.
King of Chinatown (1939)
A crime drama set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, with the alluring Anna May Wong in the led. She and her father fight racketeers.
That was it from Helaine!
PRIVATE LIFE
Helaine, at her prime, was five two and weighed 100 pounds. Helaine kept up with her exercise regime to keep trim, and was often photographed doing some unusual sports, like sand dune tennis, and loop tennis! An article on this:
Filmdom’s favorites are always ready for anything new in sports, and here is Helaine Moler, screen starlet, learning the art of loop tennis from Coach Bill Spaulding, of t C. I A.’s grid team. Using two sticks and a light ring, the idea is to snap the ring from the sticks by a deft flip of the wrists. Spaulding shows Helaine how to hold the apparatus for best results OOPS! Not so easy, that. Helaine misses a return cast by an opponent, but no one can say she is not trying. After all, it is hard to spear that flying circlet traveling at high speed.
Helaine tried working on her art as soon as she landed in Hollywood, doing chorus routines, studied daily with Oliver Hinsdell, Paramount studio dramatic coach. She made all of her own clothes from scratch – she designed them and did the sewing herself. She was also adept in culinary art, was very good in horseback riding and used to “break” her own ponies when a child.
Helaine remained deeply attached to her Virginia roots. She was one California resident who actually wanted to return to her native state to live, though her then career and her parents’ presence in the west kept her there. To sate her need, she often visited Richmond as the guest of her sister, Mrs. F. H. Craig, where she attended various social functions, and was almost always the most popular figure on the ballroom floor. After she left for Hollywood, her reddish curls were turned honey blonde, she looked like a typical Hollywood star but maintained the charm and manners of a Richmond sub-deb. However, it seems she was destined to remain in California!
In 1940 Helaine married Daniel Bartholomew Scully. Scully was born in 1898, making him a bit older than Helaine. Son of Daniel B Scully and Josephine Viola (Hogan) Scully, he was one of five sibling (of Alfred Joseph Scully and Francis Earl Scully. In 1921 he married Virginia (Eastman) Thorsen, and they had two children, a son David Bartholomew, and a daughter. Thy divorced in the late 1920s, and Daniel married Margery Nash (Ludlow) Scully on 28 Apr 1931 in Santa Ana, Orange, California. He and Margery divorced in the mid 1930s.
It seems Scully and Helaine divorced at some point, and in about 1950 Helaine married a Mr. Pratt and had a daughter in 1953, names Shannon Michelle. The last think I could find about Helaine was this article from 1958:
Mrs. Pratt, who was known in motion pictures as Helaine Moler, appeared with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the famous series of “Road” movies. Now, away from the glamour (and the hard work) of her former life, Mrs. Pratt spends her time as a member of the Community Chest Board, the Salvation Army and attends to her duties as vice president of the Republican Women’s Club. She and her husband, who is an engineer, have a five-year-old daughter, Shannon Michelle, who is this year’s “Little Miss Red Cross.” Mrs. Pratt’s hobbies are decorating and designing, in addition to her activities in the Knowland campaign and her community projects.
Helaine Moler died in 2007.
A bit too early, ALL THE BEST IN 2026!! Make it the best year ever!!!
Pretty and talented actress who tried her hand at movies, but had much more success in the TV arena, playing in a wide variety of series and shows. She then married a member of the New York intelligentsia, and her life was focused on her family from them on. Let’s learn more about her.
EARLY LIFE
Judith Braun was born on February 16, 1930, in New York City, New York, to Louis and Rose Braun. Her father was a successful lawyer, born in Romania. Her mother was born in Russia. She had an older brother, Theo, born in 1928.
Judith grew up in Brooklyn, and attended Erasmus Hall High School. Her father wanted her to become a lawyer like himself, but Judith had other ideas. After graduating, Judith attended New York University, studying acting. To make some money, she started baby sitting. Unknown to her then, she had found a new road to Hollywood. While working as a baby sitter, she kept the youngsters quiet by acting out fairy tales, which impressed almost everyone. Parents of some of the children, told a talent scout how she dramatized fairy tales while working Drama coach Sophie Rosenstein, of Universal-International, heard of her unusual methods and arranged an interview and screen test.
A contract with the studio followed. And Judith was on her way!
CAREER
Judith made her movie debut in Flame of Araby, a colorful 1950s escapism galore movie. An Arabian-nights princess and a Bedouin chief contend over possession of a stallion, but unite to oppose the Corsair Lords. The actors were Maureen O’Hara and Jeff Chandler, plus Lon Chaney Jr., Max Baer, Susan Cabot and so on. While nothing outstanding, these movies are compulsively watchable and fun.
Up next – Judith’s most famous and prominent role – came in Red Ball Express. It’s an solid, mid budget WWII movie about the men who risked their lives to supply Patton’s tanks with fuel as he barreled across Europe. He have some great actors – Sidney Poitier, Jack Kelly, Robert Davis, and the usual U-I staples, Jeff Chandler and so on.
Judith’s last movie was Horizons West, an okay western. This one has a bit more solid story for the genre, with two brothers feuding after fighting for opposing sides in the civil war. Great actors (Robert Ryan and Raymond Burr, plus the Universal International staples, Rock Hudson and Julie Adams. Judith plays the second female lead.
Judith worked on TV after that, and retired for good after 1962.
PRIVATE LIFE
Judith Braun, Noreen Michaels and Cindy Garner were a trio of newcomers signed together. Of the three, Judith perhaps had the best career, but that is sadly not saying much. A funny think happened to Judith and fellow starlet Cindy Garner when they were traveling by train to Chicago to ballyhoo Flame of Araby. On the train was Francis X. Bushman, noted silent film player who had fallen into obscurity since the dawn of talking movies (he played Messala in the silent version of Ben Hur – and boy, did he look good in the roman grab!), and Betty Blythe, also a popular actress back then. When the foursome descended in Chicago, they were mobbed – but not by handsome young men wanting to see Cindy and Judith, but by grannies who went wild when seeing Bushman, the idol of their youth! Boy, I wish I was there to see it… Pretty funny…
Here are some newspaper bits about Judith:
An actress to keep an eye on is red-haired Judith Braun, a 25-year-old Brooklyn girl with a speaking voice that sounds more like London than Brooklyn and a faith in herself that won’t quit. In her spare time, she reads, cooks, writes poetry and plays an excellent game of chess. She can’t stand idleness. “I get fidgety when a week goes by without any work,” she says. That’s when the cookbook starts flying. Remember the name. Judith Braun. She’s way above the average.
Allegedly, she has the lowest pitched voice of any actress at that time. Newspaper excerpt:
Judith Braun, reports Universal-International, is the actress with the lowest-pitched voice since Garbo. The former New York stage actress hit the 1500 mark on the sound man’s cycle meter during filming of “The Texas Man.” U-I sound-men said Garbo seldom hit that low.
And another one:
Joyce Holden sees a young composer often but she says she hasn’t the slightest notion of getting engaged: Beverly Tyler hasn’t even a remote notion of getting tied down yet.” She says she plays no favorites when dating. Judith Braun, a New York beauty, feels the same way.
While Judith did not want to marry them, she sure wanted to date them, and there were some pretty handsome guys vying for her attention. She was pretty serious about comic Roger Price and they were seen frequently around town in swank places.
Less serious were her liaisons with Scott Brady, who dated what seemed like every second girl in Hollywood. Also, she was a rival to Yvonne De Carlo for the affections of Carlos Anthony, a wealthy Canadian lumber king. Neither ended up with him in the end.
After Price, Judith almost married playwright and director Bob Joseph. There were plans that Joseph would direct movies, and Judith would act in them. However, something happened, there was a court case, Joseph lost, and after that Judith called it all off after he flew out to appeal for a new trial. I do not know the details, but they were serious about each other and it was a sad affair that it ended up that way, with litigations and court cases.
Judith, it seemed, was a tongue in cheek, witty girl who always had a repartee or two hidden in her sleeve. Two examples from the newspaper of the day:
Judith Braun, the actress, was asked by a movie producer if she wanted a movie role or a Renoir. “I’ll take the movie role,” she said, “because with a role l can always “buy a Renoir “
T. S. Eliot dined at Voisin’s recently: Judith Braun, the actress, sat nearby and urged a friend to speak to the Nobel prize poet. “You do have something in common,” she said. “Tell him you like ‘Hiawatha’.
After her brief Hollywood career was over, Judith went her own way in the acting world – meaning summer stock, off-Broadway and TV soap operas, before breaking into such bigtime shows as “Studio One,” ‘Kraft” and “Robert Montgomery Presents.” She’s also done five “Matinee Theaters” and commuted back and forth between Hollywood and New York. But, pretty soon, something cemented Judith to New York way stronger than just business. Love!
In 1960, Judith married Walter Bernstein. He was a colorful, intriguing man. A screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted during the 1950s McCarthy era. After graduating from Dartmouth in 1940 and serving as a WWII correspondent for the Army newspaper Yank, he began his Hollywood career in 1947. When his name appeared in Red Channels in 1950, Bernstein was blacklisted but continued writing for television throughout the decade using pseudonyms and “fronts.” His screenwriting career reemerged with That Kind of Woman (1959), followed by films like Paris Blues (1961) and Fail-Safe (1964).
His most notable work came with The Front (1976), a semi-autobiographical film about the blacklist starring Woody Allen, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Bernstein also directed one feature film, Little Miss Marker (1980), and published his memoir Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist in 1996. He received multiple honors from the Writers Guild of America for his contributions to the profession.
Judith and Walter lived the life of intellectuals in New York, being close friends of Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia. The couple had three children: Nicholas Bernstein, Andrew Bernstein, and Jake Bernstein. Judith gave up on her acting career to devote herself to raising her children.
Judith and Bernstein divorced in 1984. Bernstein remarried to Gloria Loomis in 1988. Judith did no remarry, and lived in New York.
Judith Bernstein died on June 21, 2021, in New York City, New York.
Becky Brown was a pretty, talented lady who got her big chance in the theater world during WW2, and was snatched by Hollywood to make movies not long after. The Tinsel Town life seemed like a good start for Becky, who even had her very own dressing room on the studio lot! However, her wish for a peaceful family life won in the end and after the birth of her first child, she gave up movies. Let’s learn more about her.
EARLY LIFE
Rebecca Swan Brown was born December 26, 1921, in Henrico, Virginia, to Stanley Porter Brown and Stella Lawson Swann. Her younger brother Stanley Jr. was born on November 16, 1923. Her father was a bookkeeper who worked in retail, and was a veteran of WW1.
The family moved a bit during Rebecca’s childhood, living in Richmond, Virginia (where her brother was born) then finally settling in Knoxville, Tennessee. Becky graduated from high school there, and then enrolled into University of Tennessee.
Becky’s theatrical talents first emerged during that time, when she won acclaim performing in the local Playhouse productions. A member of Chi Omega sorority, she was also active in the university’s musical band, and was selected as one of the 24 U-T beauties featured in the college yearbook. Recognizing she wanted to be an actress, she switched alma maters, and moved to New York to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After graduating in spring 1943, Becky immediately landed a leading role in the road company production of “The Doughgirls.” Her performance was outstanding, particularly impressing audiences when the show came to her hometown of Knoxville in November 1943. With much high praise, it was no wonder Hollywood took notice, and she was signed to a contract not long after.
CAREER
Becky signed a seven year contract with Warner Bros in 1944, but none of the movies she allegedly made them are on her IMDB page. She appeared, at least according to the newspaper stories of the time, in Shadow of a Doubt and Pride of the Marines, but as there is no info in what roles and how, I can’t be quite certain.
Her only credited role was in the minor movie, Shadow of a woman, made in 1947. The movie is in it’s core interesting with an intriguing premise, but it seems that the execution leaves much to be desired, typical for a low budget proto-film-noir. The interesting plot point is that it is a veiled critique on the situation many women faced after WW2 – while the men were of fighting, the women held the economy together and proved themselves quite resilient. But then, poof, the war is over, you can go back to being a fragile, hysterical maidens. A re-domestication of women happened for sure in the 50s, but alas it all blew over in the 70s with the women’s lib, as you can undo what was done during the war. But this movie doesn’t go that far (who knew what would happen in the 70s back then), but shows the leading lady, Andrea King, marrying a quack doctor who wants to kill his son to get his inheritance. Helmut Dantine, who always played shady characters, plays the spooky doctor.
He tries to paint his wife as crazy and unstable, as was often the norm then (if the woman behaved in any way different from what the social standards of the day were) so he was get away with the murder. Plus, he is very much obsessed with food, and constantly talks about nutrition, which is more or less normal today, but was completely of sync back in the post war days, when you ate literary anything you had (in the US the situation wasn’t nearly as bad as in Europe, where most of the people starved one way or another after the way, waiting for the ruined economies to get back on track). With this subtext, the movie gets a better rap, although it’s too short, everything is very dense (as most 80 minute movies are), and there isn’t enough characterization to actually sympathize with the characters. Also, as the author on the superb Andrea King official site wrote, there is little suspense in the movie, as the doctor is so obviously evil from frame one, there is no “did he or didn’t he” moment. Plus subpar dialogue writing. But still, it’s a watchable early noir.
That was it from Becky!
PRIVATE LIFE
When Becky landed in Hollywood, she told the papers this is how it looked like:
“I get up at 5:30 or 6 a’ m and arrive at the studio at seven to spend at least two hours in the make-up department. After the make-up man and hairdresser have completed their painstaking jobs, we are treated like china dolls for fear a hair strays out of place before they begin shooting.” “Most amazing fact to me, concerning the entire shooting of a picture,” she continued “is the enormous crew it requires from the production angle alone— from the director and electricians on down. My first day on the set found me scared to death at facing the prospect of performing with so many people standing around so close.” It is not unusual to make 15 shots of one scene in a single day according to Miss Brown. One of her most humorous and embarrassing moments came the actress remembered when she was going through the studio sets with an old friend Lt Jimmy Watson of Knoxville. Ann Sheridan and a number of other stars were there. “We were visiting the stage on which Erroll Flynn was making a scene for “San Antonio Rose” — the one in which a woman throws pieces of china at Flynn who is sticking his head out of a small window. The rehearsal was perfect – each time a vase or pitcher was thrown at him he successfully ducked into the room. But during the actual shooting the last huge pitcher landed right on his head!” – “Thinking he was clowning for the benefit of his audience I burst into noisy peals of laughter not knowing that it was all real. Flynn’s next line was ‘Give that lady a cigar!’”
Becky’s dressing room was notably next to Faye Emerson (then married to President Roosevelt’s son, Elliott), but it seems Becky decided to leave all of this. Why? For a family life. Namely, Becky married Charles M. Taylor of the U.S. Army Medical Corps between shows in Kansas City on October 23, 1943. She had originally planned to marry when the production reached Knoxville, but wartime circumstances changed those plans. Charles was the son of Lady Katherine Taylor of Dublin, Ireland, and the late Sir William Taylor.
After World War II, Becky’s husband was discharged from the Army and entered private practice. Their son Michael O’Brien was born in June 16, 1946. However, the couple immediately faced the postwar housing shortage that plagued most of Los Angeles. After a Christmas 1945 visit to Becky’s parents Knoxville, Dr. Taylor returned to Los Angeles to search for both a house and an office while Becky remained in Knoxville, waiting. Eventually, the Taylors settled into a little house on Doheny Drive with a small garden and fruit trees in back. By this time, her priorities had shifted dramatically. Their daughter (sorry could not find a name) was born not long after, cementing Becky’s role as a devoted wife and mother. Becky and her family continued living in Los Angeles.
Becky and Charles divorced at some point in the 1950s. Becky married for the second time, to Randolph Weatherby Hyde, on August 12, 1961, in Los Angeles. Hyde was born on July 22, 1906, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Roy and Ella May Hyde. He lived in Allegheny, Washington DC and New York, and worked as a stills treasurer. He was married once before, to Elizabeth Robertson, in 1940. They had a daughter, but sadly Elizabeth died in 1948.
When he married Becky, Hyde was a United States Steel Corp. executive (vice president and treasurer to be exact). The couple moved to Pauma Valley in the 1970s, after Hyde retired, and lived there in a lovely home.
Randolph died 1986 at the couple’s home in Pauma Valley, after a long illness. Rebecca Hyde continued living Pauma Valley, and I could not find any information on her date of death. As always, I hope she had a good life!
Viola Essen was a truly stunning, beautiful and very graceful ballet dancer who had a brief Hollywood hurrah in the 1940s, when a string of other stunning ballerinas also entered the fold (Vera Zorina, Irina Baronova, Tamara Toumanova, just to name a few). Unlike them, Viola was US born and bred, and this distinction made her a national treasure. However, behind the scenes, Viola had quite a turbulent private life, with huge ups and downs. Let’s learn more about her!
EARLY LIFE
Viola Elena Colchagoff was born on August 11, 1924, in St. Louis, Missouri, daughter of Asen Hristov Colchagoff and Maria “Masha” Vasileva Colchagoff. Both of her parents were born in Bulgaria and immigrated to the US in the 1910s. Her father worked as a furrier, and used the surname Essen as his Americanized surname. The family moved to New York when Viola was only a few months old.
Viola’s mother was a typical stage mother who wanted her daughter to succeed and did everything to make it so. When Viola was just two and a half years old, she took her to Los Angeles, California for a children’s dramatic contest. Viola beat 1700 other children by reciting a text her mom wrote, and this was just the beginning! The mother-daughter duo relocated to Los Angeles, where the toddler Viola worked in radio, doing dramatic sketches. They returned to New York in 1930, where Viola’s mother helped her secure a scholarship for the Mikhail Mordkin Studio for ballet.
In parallel, Viola took up piano hard core, studied with Russian great Vladimir Drozdoff, and was even offered a piano scholarship at the New York Master Institute of United Arts. Due to her merits, she got a scholarship and attended the Birch Walthen School for superior excellence.
As you can see, Viola really was something else. Buoyed by her mother, hailed as a child genius, she went from strength to strength – she made her official dancing debut in 1934 at the Waldorf Astoria. She played the role of the fairy goldfish in a ballet, which was based on a poem by Alexander Pushkin and set to music by the Russian composer, Tcherepnine.
Now, let’s just get a brief overview of Viola’s ballet career (which was primary occupation for her). She was a soloist in the Mordkin Ballet founded in 1937, and three years later appeared in the first season mounted by Ballet Theatre, the predecessor of today’s American Ballet Theatre (ABT). In 1940 she appeared in the first American performance of Anthony Tudor’s “‘The Judgement of Paris” with a cast including Tudor himself, Hugh Laing, Agnes De Mille and Lucia Chase. She also was engaged as a principal in the short-lived Ballet International, formed in 1944 by the Marquis George De Cuevas, who later established the Grand Ballet de Monte Carlo. Viola also danced in the Monte Carlo Ballet, and shared principal status with Marie-Jeanne, Andre Eglevsky and William Dollar.
Later, it was claimed that the movie “Never let me go”, made in 1953 with Clark Gable and Gene Tierney, was presumably inspired by the story of the Viola, who was smuggled out of Soviet Russia by Anton Dolin, fellow ballet dancer and her British husband. I laughed at this, as Viola was American as they come and Dolin wasn’t even her husband, but as the two danced at the Grand Ballet at the same time, so somehow this apocryphal story was born. We know this is false for sure.
Here is a article about Viola from her early days, and a big deals is made about how she was American born, and not Russian. Obviously this meant a great deal back then:
When those dancing flowers from the Mississippi prima ballerinas, are picked and not the Volga, the news is that the ballet has gone American. St. Louis-born and New York transplanted Viola Essen who is 20, tall, dark, beautiful and has eyelashes down to here is the first Yankee dancer in ballet history to stick a star on her door. She was the choice of the Rockefeller-backed Ballet International, which is opening its season here. Viola’s power to enchant an audience with her ankles clicking in mid-air like castanets and her body spinning like a whirling top spell-binding.
But she can divest herself of this glamor girl getting ready for a shower when she’s not behind the footlights. The reason, as Viola’s selfexplained routine indicates, is that the ballet is gruelling work which exacts from four to nine hours’ practice a day, demands unremitting discipline a lesson a day from the best coach, which in her case, costs $5.75 an hour- which and would taps physical energy make a prize fighter hesitate to swap his ring for the stage. This explains why Viola lives in a modestly furnished suite which her mother housekeeps in a hotel only two blocks away from the theater where she practices tirelessly with towels kept handy for mopping up sweat. Interviewed sitting in the living room strewn with ballet slippers and piles of pink ribbon for lacing them up, Viola toe caps for a new pair while she talked. darnees If a large cheddar or Swiss cheese has been purchased for use in the home, it should be kept under refrigeration below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
(Darned to every new pair of ballet slippers, it must be explained, toe caps prevent slip and give doomed satin a couple of days’ reprieve.) Asked how she felt about being the first Yankee-born ballet dancer to stick a star on her door, she said, weaving her pink-threaded needle in and out of her shoe, that she felt deeply honored. “And to disprove the critics’ contention,” she said, waving her shoe, “that American girls are only good at technique that they’re too cold to put the fire into ballet that Russian girls can. Out to refute the critics may be a Yankee Doodle boast but it stems from confidence implanted by a great Russian ballet master the late Michael Mordkin who started coaching Viola at six and launched her at 13 as the ballerina of the Mordkin Ballet. As good as her dancing record (she has been in one movie, “Rhapsody in Blue” and in a couple of musical comedies) is the record of her high I.Q. While her talents paid for ballet lessons, her wits won her a scholarship-free diploma from New York’s select Birch Wathen school.
Here is a bit more about Viola:
As American as apple pie, Viola likes to go jitterbugging, hang onto a piano when jive gets hot, listen raptly with chin on hand to the singing Hildegarde, and rhumba with young men who shake a mean hip. There has never been any complaint, either, says Viola, that she can’t follow a dancing partner. She says she can tuck in a meal which three other girls might stagger under, and stows away such whopping steaks a pound at one sitting and so rare that it bleeds that she has to get them oftener in restaurants than at home to bridge the gap in ration points.
It was just a matter of time before Hollywood noticed Viola, and there is was!
CAREER
Viola’s Hollywood career was brief. She appeared in only one movie, Specter of the rose, in 1944. As far as I read the reviews, it’s a weird, off the beaten path movie, written with a pretentious, flowery prose, and with a highly improbable story. Ivan Kirov plays a ballet dancer who may or may not have killed his first wife, and now it seems he may kill his second wife, played by Viola. Will he, won’t he? Why does he want to murder his wives? Does the music have anything to do with it? I won’t spoil more, but you get the gist. Judith Anderson, one of the best actresses to grace classic Hollywood, comes out the only seasoned thespian here, which she was. The highlight is definitely the movie’s moody, dark, somber and slightly haunting atmosphere that works against all odds!
Viola appeared in some minor TV work, and that was it from her!
PRIVATE LIFE
Viola sure had a colorful private life! The first thing we know, Viola was married to actor Richard Deane in about 1943, when she was only 18 years old. Born as Richard Reid in 1918, he was a 6 years older than Viola, and was a B movie actor for a time in the late 1930s in Hollywood before focusing on a much more successful theater career. The marriage was a sham from the start, and ended up badly only a year later – it was rumored that instructed his attorney to sue for divorce, and the word was hear the suit would be a sizzler. Unfortunately I never learned anything more about the details, and Deane and Viola were divorced by the time the year was out.
In late 1945, Viola married German born violinist Werner Gebauer. Gebauer, born in 1918 into a family of prominent diplomats and physicians, was a direct descendant to Felix Mendelssohn on his mother’s side. He was made by his mother to take violin lessons that he disliked, but, to the surprise of everybody, 3 years after his first lesson, Gebauer gave a wildly acclaimed recital at Berlin’s Beethoven Hall, and within 2 years, his performances had spanned three Continents.
Gebauer arrived at Ellis Island with $7 in his pocket and not a soul he could call a friend; pretty staggering odds! He auditioned and was accepted for a fellowship into Juilliard Graduate School, assigned to the class of Albert Spalding, the great American violinist. After 3 years of intensive studies he made his debut at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Otto Klemperer, which opened doors to world tours with the famous Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, followed by concertmaster-ships with the National Symphony in Washington D.C. and the Dallas Symphony.
Viola and Werner met at the ballet Ruses, and the rest was history as they say. The couple settled in Los Angeles, and for a time it seemed their marriage was pretty solid. On August 21, 1947 their son Robin Stephan Gebaurer was born in Los Angeles. However, the strain of new motherhood, combined with busy careers on both side, slowly eroded their marriage. Werner left for New York when their son was just months old, and Viola was in doubt as to stay or to go. Love won, or at least it seemed so, as Viola headed to New York early in 1948 to join Werner (with their son of course). They did reconcile, but it lasted a paltry two months before Viola instructed her attorneys to file for divorce. Viola remained in New York after that, never to return to Hollywood again.
Viola wasted no time in looking for new beaus. She married her second husband, Peter Cadby, in New York in 1949. She was 23, he was 34. Peter Cadby was born in 1918 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Charles and Geraldine Wright Cadby. He worked as a freelance write in New York for a few years before marrying Viola. Their son, known as Bozo in the future, was born in 1950. However, this marriage was also short lived, and they divorced in 1952. Around this time, her son Robin, going under the name of Robin Essen, played the important role of Henry Fonda’s son in “The Wrong Man.”
Viola marched on and married not long after her divorce – the time is January 1953, the guy is Herbert Crane. Crane was better known as Dean Craine, a leading clown artist of the time. He worked on TV, appearing in the TV series “Big Top”. The marriage was also short lived, with Craine on the road a great deal, and Viola mostly New York based. They divorced in mid 1955.
As expected from Viola, she was on her next romantic conquest right away. Viola dated Marlon Brando!! By this time, she had her own ballet school in Carnegie Hall and Brando thrilled the pupils by dropping up to play the bongo drums for one of the classes. Alas, Brando dated a string of other women too, and he and Viola bust up pretty soon.
The new man of the moment – Gabe Dell, the actor, was just freshly divorced from his wife, model Jan Leonard. Viola and he hooked up in early 1956, and things went on very quickly from there. They got married in August 1956. Gabriel DelVecchio was born on October 8, 1919, in New York, to Marie DelVecchio and her husband, both italian immigrants. His father was a doctor. After getting some prominense by singing in a church choir and then on a children’s radio show. He made his stage debut in the play “Dead End” and, with the other juvenile members of the cast, was called to Hollywood for the film version. He became one of the famous East Side Kids/Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys and made more than 20 movies with them. He served in WW2, and he played in a few more of the Bowery Boys series but made his final film with them in 1950 and struck out on his own. He took roles in Broadway plays, formed a nightclub act with former East Side Kid Huntz Hall and studied for three years at the Actors Studio. He worked steadily in television and only rarely on TV.
Their son Beau DelVecchio was born in early 1957. The marriage was tempestuous, with big ups and downs from he very start. Viola separated from Gabriel in April 1957, and took the children with her. They were on and off for the better part of the year, until in December the finally got together again and started living as a family once more. Gabe and Viola went to their third honeymoon to cement the newfound happiness. Here is a sweet anecdote about Viola’s son, Bozo, whom Gabriel adopted.
An agent called actor Gabe Dell to suggest that he try out for a part in a new play. Dell is married to ballerina Viola Essen and their son, Bozo, answered the phone. The agent started to make small talk. “Bozo,” he said, “if you ever get a chance to act will you obey the director?” The six-year-old turned to his approaching mother. “It’s for me, Mom,”
The 1950s came and went, as they say, and Gabe and Viola entered the 60s with mixed success. Viola had to close her dancing school and declare bankruptcy just as the decade was closing, and tried her hand at a variety of activities, including making appearances in TV commercials. Both of their careers fading, under immense pressure, the Dells separated again in 1962, and were apart for a few years before reconciling in early 1965, but were finally divorced before the year ended. Dell went on to marry Allison Daniell, daughter of actor Henry Daniell, and had another son, Gabriel Jr., in 1967. He continued acting, and developed an interest in Zen in the 70s. Dell died from leukemia on July 15, 1988.
For Viola, 60s were a mix of everything it seems. By 1966 she was owner of a florist shop on Broadway in the 70s. However, shop life turned up to be quite dramatic, as Viola was burgled at gunpoint and a few nights later driven to the shivery streets by a fire. That’s New York life for you! Unfortunately, Viola was nowhere to be seen in the papers, so any info on her becomes very scarce.
Viola Essen allegedly died from a pill overdose on January 16, 1970.
Tanya Widrin was an intriguing woman. A beautiful girl who landed in Hollywood after a modeling career, she never made a movie, but dated up a storm, met a large number of stars, but decided to try other thing life has to offer. After being very active in the war effort. She did some anthropological work before marrying, but that did not stop her from pursuing several other career opportunities. Let’s learn more about her!
EARLY LIFE
Tatiana Laura Widrin was born on September 18, 1920, in San Francisco, California, daughter of Mark “Marcus” Widrin and Ella Foote. Tanya was the oldest of three children – she had a younger sister, Florence Geraldine, born on December 1, 1921, and a younger brother, Gerald, born on March 27, 1923. Her father, born in Russia, was a broker.
Tanya grew up in San Francisco, and was considered a very beautiful child. Her mother was a native of Fresno, and Tanya spent several summer vacations in Fresno with her grandmother. One year, when she she and her mother attended the Fresno District Fair, and there Tanya cemented her secret desire for a movie and stage career. In June 1938, she graduated from the Polytechnic High School. Her modeling career started just days after when she posed with her mother’s prize Pomeranians at a dog show in San Francisco. She attracted additional attention as “the only woman barker” at the San Francisco Exposition, where she gave the spiel for the “Gloria”.
In the late 1930s, Tanya attended the University of Southern California, where she was affiliated with Pi Beta Phi, but on the side was a very successful print model, appearing in all kinds of events and crowned with a variety of titles. She ultimately never graduates from USC, and went into modeling full time. While appearing as Miss Monte Carlo at the Golden Gate International Exposition, Tanya was selected as the most beautiful girl on Treasure Island.
This is how she was noted by Hollywood brass (rumors has it it was Raoul Walsh who discovered her at the fair, but take that with a grain of salt), and she was taken for a screen test almost immediately. MGM nabbed her first – despite her initial refusal to take the test, she was finally persuaded and she was hired and given a contract.
CAREER
Sadly, Tanya appeared in no movies except the short movie advertisement for the Baby Stars. The reason cited was that she was told her voice was too high-pitched and would restrict her to roles in B-movies. Opting not to become a western heroine, she gave up movies and did some minor theater work before leaving acting for good.
PRIVATE LIFE:
When Tanya just came to Hollywood, she got a ton of publicity due to the baby Stars franchise. This is just a bit from the papers of the time:
The 20-year-old San Francisco girl, who is known locally as a graduate of Polytechnic High School. an ex-barker at the Exposition and a model, is now the verge of a motion picture career as one of 13 recently chosen “Baby Stars of 1940.” In San Francisco today for a short visit, Miss Widrin says her new work is thrilling, is looking forward to prospective personal appearance tours with other “Baby Stars” and auditions at Paramount and Twentieth Century Studios. If a contract results from one of the auditions, she will undergo six months’ dramatic coaching to prepare her for substantial roles. She is meeting the great and near -great in Hollywood, has learned to tell porters, “You really mustn’t use this, but and considers Hollywood “not a bad place.” “Young people are warned to stay away from Hollywood because it’s overcrowded now. But I feel I can do something in pictures and think if you have talent you can always make the grade there.” The local girl, it would seem, is making good.
Of course, we know that nothing came out of it, and six months later, Tanya ruled out her movie career for good. However, four of the Baby Stars, Ella Bryan, Tanya Widrin, Gay Parkes and Jan Holm were working as dance instructresses for Arthur Murray, and Tanya and Vicki Lester (who we already profiled here) were featured in spots in the Broadway musical, “It’s High Time.”
On a side note, it seems that Tanya was a gutsy, strong willed woman, as evidenced by this article: Tanya Widrin, model and “baby star of 1940,” today disclosed that she had dropped her $20.000 suit against the Bekins Storage and Walter Shanks, the model’s agent. Miss Widrin charged that her picture had been used without her signed release in connection with an advertisement. The comely brunette’s court decision was conveyed to her attorney, Bingham Gray, according to friends.
So, no kidding around for Tanya! They used her picture without her consent, she went all in and sued them. I guess they settled out of out somehow, but good for her! But now for the most interesting part of Tanya’s exposé to Hollywood… Her beaus!
Tanya impressed me with how many talented, interesting men she dated! What a list! Obviously Tanya was an animated, smart and elegant young woman, and much sough after in the Hollywood circles back in the early 40s. Her first “serious” (more like officially noted) Hollywood beau was Lydell Peck, an attorney, ex-husband of Janet Gaynor, somewhere in early 1940. He and Janet had been divorced for 7 years by then, but it did not lead to a more permanent engagement. Next on the menu in 1940 – Tanya dated Bill Marshall, who married some of the most charming Hollywood actresses – Ginger Rogers, Michele Morgan, Micheline Presle! But it seems Marshall was a well known ladies men, and Tayna was just one in a long line of beauties he dated, preceded by the pretty Helen Gilbert. Of course, it did not last long at all.
By the end of the year, Tanya was quite serious with famous cartoonist Peter Arno, but it was a tempestuous relationship and it seems Arno was violent with Tanya on more than one occasion. Here is a newspaper bit about it:
Peter Arno, the cartoonist, and pretty dark haired Tanya Widrin, model, starred in a new “cafe bout,” according to a story going the rounds in Hollywood today. Miss Widrin was quoted as relating the blow by blow running account. AT 4 A.M.
She had accompanied Arno to night spots several times lately. And then, along about 4 in the morning on tr this occasion she opined it would be good to go home and 1 rest up for a modeling assignment. There seemed to be an argument that climaxed when she tossed a glass of water in Arno’s face. Thereupon, according to Miss Widrin, Arno, who had figured in cafe clashes before, opened his palm and applied it smartly, if lightly, to her cheek. NOT A WORD.
The unusual denouement however, was that after it was over, Arno drove Miss Widrin home, and, as she related it, no word was spoken during the trip. Tanya Widrin, 20, was one of the most photographed models in San Francisco until she headed for Hollywood.
While she and Arno tiffed, Tanya was also seen around town with well known playboys Bruce Cabot and Jimmy McHugh. However, interesting to note, even while dating Arno, Tanya insisted her “best boy friend” is Count Di Castagnola, whose family is in Italy. It seems that many men had come and gone, but di Castagnola stayed for a longer period, obviously as an constant auxiliary boyfriend she could always count on.
In 1941, Tanya was seen on the arm of Al Schwabacher, Jr., usually when she was back home in San Francisco. That year, she also dated Franchot Tone, the actor who seemingly dated all the pretty girls, and got involved with Rudy Vallee. Vallee was a bit more stable than the rest of her swains, and he even went to San Francisco to meet her parents at some point. Tanya also played hostess to several parties at Vallee’s residence. But alas there were more beaus on the side. With Johnny Olson, sonny boy of Governor Olson, Tanya was gulping bowls of chow mein, and with Jack Clark, Tanya was always seen at the trendy IT Caffe. She was seen several times with Seymour Chotiner and Lawrence Tibbett Jr, the son of the actor.
However, in the sea of various beaus, it seems Tanya was a bit more serious with two more: Blake Garner and Harry Cocker. They were acquaintances who knew each other from before, but that did not stop Blake from taking Tanya under Harry’s nose! But, in vein with Tanya’s non chalant reply to a wannabe suitor, : “I’m going steady with four other fellows.” So it’s no surprise all this drama happened! And the ever loyal Count A. G. di Castagnola was always there in the sidelines.
On a lighter note, for her birthday in 1941 Tanya was especially virile, as you can read here: “Tanya celebrated her birthday the other day by keeping consecutive dates with six man from noon till midnight. They were Harry Crocker, Bob de Mailly, Bob Rickard, Dirk Potter, Fred Kohler Jr. and Christopher Hofer, whoever -the -hell they are.
New year brought new swains to the list. In 1942, Tanya was seen with Billy Bakewell, dated a lot of Nilis T. Granlund, and when she came back home to San Francisco, her cigarettes were lighted by Dick Koshland, of the local Big Family. They were followed by Los Angeles Sheriff Biscailuz‘ son, Warren, and finally Tanya got herself a real life Captain, James Black. But, wait there is more! Tanya dated Jack Warner (older Warner’s son), and was seen around town with the lothario agent Vic Orsatti. Tanya also dated her former boyfriend Larry Tibbett’s younger brother! Imagine that dramatic family scene!
By now WW2 was in high gear, and Tanya went into action swiftly. She was an active member of Women’s Air Raid Defense (WARDS) and traveled a great deal with the organization, often risking her life. Tanya used her former romantic liaisons to help her, as this bit can attest (using Rudy Vallee):
Miss Tanya Widrin was hostess to a party of actresses and Army men at Sunday’s Danzon at the Beverly Hills Athletic Club. After refreshments, Rudy Vallee turned over his house to them for an informal party. and a showing of the motion picture. Sandwiches and more refreshments were served at a late hour and George Givot entertained the group. Miss Widrin gave the party as a member of the American Women’s Voluntary Services.
In 1943, during the war, Tanya married Leonard S. Lyon, on October 8, in Yuma Arizona. By January, the couple were on a brink of divorce. They separates in December, and finally divorced in January. So much for a very brief and kiss less marriage!
After her divorc in January 1944, Tanya wasted no time in getting back on the singles market. She dated producer Bob Ritchie, who was involved with Jeannette MacDonald at one point, then switched to Tom Sullivan and finally became a bit more cozy with her old flame, by then Lieut. Dick Tibbett – both were married in the interim. Tanya also traveled for Florida with roommate Nan Macy and Count A. D. di Castagnola, who was obviously still in the picture.
After the war was over, Tanya had a tour through Europe in a convertible coupe. Then, Tanya worked as an anthropological explorer (but I could not find much information on that online, but it seems she traveled around the world exploring various civilizations, including Lacandone Indians in Mexico), and then… In 1947, in Paris, Tanya met her future husband. They got together and married rather suddenly. The groom was Edmund Sheedy of Palm Beach, and New York. Edmund was the son of Mrs. Bryan DeForest Sheedy of New York and the late Dr. Sheedy, studied at Crawford Foreign Service School, Washington. After a honeymoon trip to St. Moritz the newlyweds settled into the high life in Palm Beach. However, it seems that Ed did leave a trail of broken hearts after himself. Read this:
Happiest trader on the gilded street we think is Ed Sheedy. Ed one of society’s most elusive bachelors, swapped his freedom for glamorous Tanya Widrin in Paris in one of the fastest marital moves ever witnessed in Mayfair. Only the other day Ed was following Agnes Pyne McLean Hudson from Hot Springs pillars to Texas posts, with insiders wagering they’d marry as soon as Agnes was legally free. Tanya cables she is very very happy and we find ourselves wondering if Ed’s much publicized pursuit of the wealthy heiress to Pyne millions didn’t help make up Tanya’s mind.
As society’s youngest lady explorer, she had dedicated her life to counting head-hunters and sharing primitive itchy with people. When Tanya said no to Ed for the seventh time last July, she told him she planned to journey into the New Guinea bush to meet 1,000,000 newly discovered headhunters. Now that she is married, the pint-size and pretty explorer will have to be satisfied with meeting Ed friends in Palm Beach. They’ll go there after a wedding trip to St. Moritz and a brief visit here.
You think this is all? Well, heck no! Another very interesting article about Ed’s former swains:
We’re not too sure what Ponce de Leon said as he first set foot on the sandy soil of Florida, but we are in a position to pass on to posterity, the first words of beautiful Babs (Eleanor) Livingston Briggs as she placed a dainty foot on the soil of the local airport.
“Where’s Ed?” Babs was heard to say in a surprised tone of voice. When informed that Ed, who also answers to the name of Mr. Sheedy, not only was absent, but married to young lady-explorer named Tanya, Widrin, looking Babs automobile departed and in a mist. of Sheedy, tears. it develops, had made a date Beaches the young lady in Palm In fact, the unpredictable socialite-rover had been an ardent suitor.
Thickening the plot is the news that Ed telephoned the fair Babs two days before Christmas and made the Palm Beach date. We read the cable from Paris announcing Ed’s surprise wedding to Tanya on Christmas day. This is the second time Babs received annoying news. The comely cousin of society’s Timmie Lansing was married to L. Cabot Briggs of the Boston branch, when Cabot cabled from Algiers that he might stay on for a couple more years.
She politely cabled him to stay (or at some other tropical clime) indefinitely. Not too many in society know that Babs shed Cabot via the courts a short time ago.
While Edmund seems like a very good catch on paper (young, handsome, rich, from a WASPy family), anyone can smell the subtle but present stench of a man who likes to date women by bucketloads and plays with them like they are just dolls. Even two children, two daughters (Lurelle, born on August 29, 1948 in Southampton and Tatiana, born in 1949, who sadly died as a baby), could not change that fact. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Ed and Tanya divorced in 1951. Ed never remarried, and died in 1982 in Palm Beach.
But Tanya was a curious woman who wanted to do things, and for a time in the early 1950s moved to Honolulu to install the first island unit of Stars and Bars, national nonprofit college and career girls service organization. There, she got close with another socialite she knew from before, Walter Brooks III. They married in 1953 in Mexico. Walter was the grandson of Mrs. E. T. Stotesbury, social leader of Philadelphia and Palm Beach, and a nephew of former Ambassador James Cromwell. He went into business upon graduation. On the return from Honolulu the couple left on a belated honeymoon to France. There, Tanya and Walter’s son, Walter Booth Brooks IV, was born (in Paris) in 1954.
However, Tanya’s marriage was fraught with tension from the very beginning. In 1955, when their son was barely one year old, Tanya and Walter separated at least a few times, the last one which happened with an interesting “clause” attached. Walter has allegedly signed an agreement turning over his prospective inheritance to Tanya if he isn’t completely reformed. Only Tanya was aware of the terms. They separated a couple of more times, and almost divorced in 1958, but against all odds, remained married. I do n’t know how they did it. I really don’t.
Marital woes aside, as Mrs. Brooks, Tanya was extremely prolific in both work and civic duties. Here is a list, taken from her obituary: “In Palm Beach, Tanya originated an early television talk show. Tanya’s bylines were seen in the Chicago American and the Palm Beach Shiny Sheet. Tanya was the editor of Palm Beach Illustrated. She started a photography business and chaired the 1979 Palm Beach Heart Auction. Tanya developed art galleries in Palm Beach, Los Angeles and Tokyo.”
Walter died in 1981. Tanya continued living and working in Palm Beach, and developed a beautiful companionship with Mr. Grenville Walker.
What a cool character Gay Parkes was! A southern debutante from Nashville, Gay lived the high life of a socialite, traveling around and meeting people all around the world, but harboring a strong penchant for the performing arts. Almost in parallel, she was an active participant in both the social world and the theater world, and by the time she landed in Hollywood in 1939, already 30 years old, LaUna was a veteran of many stages and shows! While her Hollywood career never petered out, it seemed to me it was just a milestone on her way, one which she checked out, and then returned to her first love – both Nashville and theater! Let’s learn more about her.
EARLY LIFE
LaUna Gay Parkes was born on February 20, 1909, in Nashville, Tennessee, to George Smith Parkes and Launa Black. Later in the paper there were claims her father was connected to the Duponts, but I can’t either deny or confirm this (so perhaps Launa was a Dupont heiress!). She was their only child.
Anyway, the Parkes were high society people, and Launa grew up as a happy debutante in Nashville, enjoying the southern lifestyle and traveling extensively from the time she was a child. Here is a typical article displaying Gay’s busy social life:
Miss Gay Parkes, debutante of Nashville, Tenn., was hostess to a group of friends recently in the Sunset Plaza, where she is stopping, in honor’ of Mr. and Mrs. Martin Lamont. Cocktails and luncheon beside the pool pre. ceded an afternoon of bridge and sports.
Sadly, Launa’s father died in 1918, and as a result she became very close to her mother, as the two became best friends and confidantes. Launa displayed a penchant for dramatics early, doing school plays and showing off her sparkling, bubbly nature (she played Spirit of Spring at one play, so you get the picture).
In 1922, Launa and her mom spent the whole year abroad, with her going to schools in Luasanne and then Paris. They saw a great chunk of Europe in that one go, including UK, Spain, Germany, Italy and Greece. I really like the old school jet set life Launa had at that period. She seemed like a down to earth person who valued traveling and out a great deal of emphasis on her dancing, singing and acting prowess. Ater having spent a year abroad, LaUna was enrolled into the Spence school in New York.
After attending Spence school, Una attended the prestigious Finch college in Manhattan. After graduating, Gay wanted to become an actress, and plunged head first into the enchanting life of summer stock and traveling theater groups. She found work New England little theaters and among other, appeared In the Assistance League production of ‘Dinner at Eight” In the role that ‘ Jean Harlow played in the film version.
La Una worked hard at her craft (dancing and acting), and in the early 1930s, who was selected from a group of 250 girls by dancing giant Michel Fokine himself to appear in the famous Fokine Russian ballet, composed of only twenty-two girls. She made her debut in the open air Randall Island Stadium near New York. It seems her stage work was varied and she proved her mantle as a triple threat.
LaUna finally landed in Hollywood when she was called the WAMPAS Baby Star of 1940. here is the list of the girl who made the cut:
Joan Leslie of Detroit and Sheila Ryan of Topeka, Kan. Miss Leslie is 16, with auburn locks, weighs 116 and is five feet, four inches tall. Miss Ryan is 19, brown-haired, weighs 107 and is five feet two. Striking an average, the composite starlet of 1940 has a 34-inch bust, 36-inch hips and 24 K -inch waist. She’s almost 20, weighs 115, stands five feet, four and one-half inches . . . And is very easy to look at. The other choices: Ella Bryan, 22, Zurich, Switzerland, light brown hair, five feet three, 110. Jayne Hazard, 18, Tampa, Fla-blonde, five feet five. 118. Marilyn Merrick, ‘ 17, Fort Worth, Tex., blonde, five feet four, 119. Lois Ranson. 18, Hollywood, light brown, five feet three, 110. Lorraine Elliott, 19, Detroit, black, five feet two, 110. Peggy Diggins, 18, New Rochelle, N. Y., black, five feet seven, 118. Tanya Wirdin, 20, San Francisco, brown, five feet four, 117. Kay Leslie, 21, Fresno, Cal., auburn, five feet six, 124. Gay Parkes, 22, Nashville, Tenn., auburn, five feet three, 108. Patricia Van Cleve, 19, New York City, blonde, five feet six, 115. Lucia Carroll, 24, Wausau, Wis., brown, five feet five, 118
Some of the girls have already been profiled on this blog, and I hope to profile a few more. This was a late day revival of the original WAMPAS Baby Stars, that went from the 1920s until 1934. I have no idea how Gay came to becomes a WAMPAS baby star, but this was her springboard into stardom!
CAREER
Very slim picking here, only one movie role to her name on IMDB: Behind city lights, a forgotten, B class comedy with Lynne Roberts in the leading role. It’s an adaptation of a Vicki Baum novel about a naive farm girl who gets entangled with a city boy, unaware he is a diamond thief. LaUna plays a dancer, so she only appears in a few scenes.
I won’t go much into her theater career, but this is where LaUna made her strongest impact. Small snippet about her work:
Experienced Gay Parkes, , who plays the role of Geraldine, the maid, in “Dr. Lincoln’s Attic,” at the Playtime Theater, has plenty of experience in comedy roles of this type.
That’s it from LaUna!
PRIVATE LIFE
It seems that LaUna was a very popular, sought after debutante in the late 1920s. She possessed both beauty and charm, and for such a young person, she has spent much time abroad and for eighteen months was a student at an exclusive school for girls in Paris. For three years she and her mother have spent the winters in New York where she attended the Finch and Spence schools, so she was a visible social fixture both on the East coast and on the South. During her stay In the East she was greatly admired and was A favorite In college and social circles there as well as in Nashville.
Thus, it was no wonder Gay had a coterie of wanna-be beaus. And Launa allegedly married twice in 1928! I could hardly believe it myself, but there is a marriage certificate for Launa Parkes and George Beard in April 1928. Then, the papers mention Launa getting married for the second time in late August, to fellow socialite Gari Gaston! Anyway, for both marriages she was only 19 years old and barely out of high school. While I could not find much on Mr. Beard, Mr. Gaston, born in 1903, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. G. B. Gaston, attended Vanderbilt University where he was a popular member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. While a student at Peabody he made an enviable record an an athlete. What I found a bit iffy was that LaUna and Gari went to live with Gari’s mother at her residence on Kensington place. For a young, headstrong girl to live with her mother in law sounds like a bad idea, and I think it didn’t pan out well at all. By next year, there was no mention of Gaston when LaUna was mentioned in the papers! Like they were over and done by then!
It seems that LaUna dated extensively after that, and on a global scale, counting Russell Berman of Middlesex and Andrea Bodrutt, from St. Morits Switzerland, Barney Weadock of New York, Tommy Bagley or Nashville among her swains. LaUna was for a time heavily involved wit actor Richard French, and here is a small snippet about them:
Gay Parkes and her guest, Richard French, have a great deal to tell about their recent trip from Los Angeles, Calif. They left the coast city the middle of last week in the midst of a blackout. Gay says that she was not allowed to pull up the shades on the train until the day following her departure. Gay has recently taken part in “Glamor Preferred” at the Beaux Arts Theater in Los Angeles, when Richard took the male lead.
Richard originally hailed from Manchester, N. and has been on the New York stage. He had the musical lead in “New Faces” and took part in “The Night of January Sixteenth.” For the past two years he has been in California where he has played roles in the movies. He did character parts in the movies, “Dance Hall” and “International Lady.”
But marriage was not in the cards for LaUna just yet. She preferred traveling around (she really did see the world, going to Russia in 1935, Mexico, and seeing a great chunk of Europe). In all her travels, her most devoted companion was her mother, and the duet was never too long apart, as we have already noted in the early life snippet.
When she came to Hollywood in 1939, Gay got some weird publicity about her path in life so far, and often things like this were written about her:
She started by getting a job in a furniture store, taking lessons in line reading, appeared in all the little theater roles she could get, won recognition as one of the “baby stars” of 1910 and now is getting all her friends back in Tennessee to pull for her to be given a part in the Alvin York picture.
It seems they wanted to make gay a bit more of a Cinderella than she really was – coming from money in Tennessee, she hardly needed to work in a furniture store, but old Hollywood tabloids only rarely ever told the whole truth, so there is goes! Also another funny Hollywood story about LaUna: she spent three months constantly studying diction to lose her southern accent, but had to get it back in a hurry when her first screen test turned out to be the part of a belle from the deep south. Another thing the papers noted: LaUna also enjoyed skiing a great deal, having honed her skills in Switzerland, but preferring Utah for domestic skiing sojourns.
When LaUna was in Tinsel town, the folks back home in Nashville would breathlessly await for any news of their princess, and she did not disappoint – here is a newspaper snippet about what Gay was doing there, who she met and how. It seems she really did have a rowdy, nice time!
If when Clark Gable comes to town almost all women practically turn hand springs, how envious they would be of Una Gay Parkes who has just recently (returned home from months and months in Los Angeles right in the thick of it all.
Gay is a member of the theater group in Los Angeles named the “Palm Room Players” and has taken the lead in “Brother Rat,” played in “Yes, My Darling Daughter,” and has done skits by Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward. Just before she left California she went to a party given by Ina Claire in San Francisco and a week or two before that she went to party given by Stanton Griffith, who is the head of one of the bigger screen organizations. She has talked to Errol Flynn, and met Mickey Rooney, who was on his way to New York equipped with his fifteen “tearing suits.” He explained to Gay that people literally tore his suits for souvenirs. Gay told us of seeing Greta Garbo in store in Los Angeles one day. “She was most oddly dressed in slacks and a man’s coat and a large panama hat but even then she was stunning for her eyes are so beautiful,” said Gay.
On a recent visit to a movie studio Gay met Marlene Dietrich, when she was making the film, “Destry Rides Again.” She also met Deanna Durbin there, and by the way Gay went to Dramatic School with Robert Stack the boy who was Deanna Durbin’s leading man in her last picture, “First Love.” Gay went to a “Sunday Nighters” party recently with Jeffrey Lynn. He is to be remembered in “Four Daughters.”
Gay was allegedly involved with actor Tom Neal at some point, but was never married to him despite some newspaper reporting her as his first wife. Gay married Joseph Peter Meersman in 1943. She was 34, the groom was 42. Meersman was born in the Netherlands on January 3, 1901, to Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Meersman and moved with his parents to the US. They lived in New Hampshire, then Joseph lived in Los Angeles, and worked as an actor. He was married once before, to Muriel Gretchen Barr, and their only child was sadly stillborn in 1932.
The newlywed couple couple acted together in theater shows, working in the same company, and moved to Tennessee, Gay’s home state, sometime after the war. Thus, her Hollywood career was truly done and over by then, but she simply continued working in other mediums. Their only child, a son, Joseph Peter Jr, was born in 1953 in Nashville. As far as I can tell, they also opened a clothes boutique, and continued acting on the side.
Meersman died on August 24, 1972. Gay continued living in Nashville. In the1980s, she remarried to Einer Nielsen, a Nebraska native born on February 19,1902, a widower himself (his wife died in 1979). Einer and Gay lived in happy retirement in Tennessee.
Gay Meersman Nieles died in April 26, 1994, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Remembered today as James Cagney’s leading lady, Evelyn Daw had a very, very short career as an actress, but managed a much longer and productive career as a singer, before retiring and raising a family. Let’s learn more about her!
EARLY LIFE
Evelyn Pearl Shuck was born on November 16, 1912, in Geddes, South Dakota, to Walter Shuck and Edith Miller. She had two older brother, Edgar, born on April 1, 1906, Maynard was born on July 26, 1909, and a younger brother, Winston, born on July 24, 1919. Her father was a real estate agent her mother a housewife.
Later in life, Evelyn would remember the sleigh rides, snow men and ice skating on the Missouri as some of the highlight of her childhood. Evelyn was only two years old when she made her debut as a public entertainer. Already famous locally for her flaming auburn hair, she sang a little song all alone in an amateur minstrel show at the Temple theatre in Geddes.
From that time on she was a star attraction in every entertainment that her church and successive schools staged. In grammar school, at the age of ten, she was given the lead in an operetta staged by the children of her grade. Later on, in high school, she was featured in almost every dramatic or musical production put on at the school, and also entered music and declamatory contests. What’s more, her merit well recognized, and the Geddes high school trophy case contains a number of silver cups for which Evelyn’s talents are wholly or in part responsible. She was also active in various church shows.
Evelyn’s education at her small town was not sufficient to develop her voice to its capabilities. So after graduating high school, she entered Dakota Wesleyan — University at Mitchell. S. D., but after two years decided to forego further academic study and concentrate on becoming a singer. She came to Southern California and studied voice at the Fresno State College in California, getting a few professional jobs singing with Peruses and occasionally a minor role in a musical production.
Some time later, she sang small parts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Opera and sang as a soloist at St. James Episcopal Church and the Los Angeles Methodist Church. She studied with singing coach Phoebe White before being discovered by and becoming a protege of Victor Schertzinger who then directed her signed her for the 1937 Cagney film “Something to Sing About”.
CAREER
Evelyn appeared in only two movies, Something to sing about and Panamint’s bad mad.
Something to sing about, the highlight of Evelyn’s career, is a musical comedy directed by Victor Schertzinger and starring the legendary James Cagney. In the film, Daw played Sheila, a sweet-natured singer and the love interest of Cagney’s character, a bandleader-turned-Hollywood actor. Although the film itself was not a major commercial success, it has since gained a cult following for Cagney’s performance and its behind-the-scenes satire of the movie industry. Evelyn’s presence added grace to the film, and her operatic voice stood out, providing a musical counterbalance to Cagney’s dynamic energy.
Sadly, the studio went bankrupt after the movie, and this effectively derailed Evelyn’s career. She tried to sign to a new studio, but made only one more movie, the solid but sadly forgotten western musical, Panamint’s bad mad, with Smith Ballew. That was it from Evelyn!
PRIVATE LIFE
Evelyn had auburn hair and a lyric soprano voice. When Evelyn came to Hollywood, they tried to sell her as a Cinderella who got her golden chance almost by accident, hence articles like this:
Cinderella’s “fairy godmother” is director Victor Schertzinger who discovered Miss Daw singing in a Los Angeles operetta. He gave her audition and then offered her the engagement as a feminine lead in “Something to Sing About.” Schertzinger said he ought to know what he wanted as he wrote the original story, wrote the music and is directing the picture. The author-director-composer says he believes Miss Daw is the next great star of the screen.
Very similar to this:
In the second place, she has remained unaffected.- extremely gracious and completely charming in spite of overwhelming attentions from directors all the way down to hair dressers, in spite of laudatory press notices whipped out by Hollywood’s professional drum beaters, and in spite of a contract which calls for a salary roughly equivalent to the total annual “take” from South Dakota’s cigarette tax. In other words, Evelyn is the kind of a young lady that South Dakotans would have chosen to represent them in the film capitol if the matter had been submitted to a popular vote. These impressions were gained over a glass of buttermilk consumed in Miss Daw’s company at the restaurant in the studio where she has just completed work on her first picture.
There were high hopes for Evelyn that did not pan out sadly. But Evelyn’s heart was not in the movies, but at the stage. She ditched her chance at cinematic stardom to play in a variety of operettas and plays, and moved to New York in 1939 for more singing opportunities. From about 1942, she toured with the J.J. Shubert Opera Co. for 11 years (her No, no Nanette performance was famous and well received) before moving first to Covina, California, where she was a voice teacher, then to San Diego, where she became active in the Old Globe Theatre.
In the meantime, Evelyn got married! Sometime in the 1940s, Evelyn married military doctor, Stewart H. Smith. They had four children, two sons (I could only find one son, Gregory Daw, born on April 7, 1952) and two daughters.
Evelyn Daw Smith died on November , 1970, in San Diego, California.
Those obscure objects of desire 
