Louise Fazenda (1895 - 1962)

Of Portuguese ancestry, Louise Fazenda was born in Lafayette, Indiana. Her father, Joseph Fazenda, was a merchandise broker. After moving west Louise attended Los Angeles High School and St. Mary’s Convent. Before trying motion pictures, she worked for a dentist, a candy store owner, and a tax collector and on stage. Louise Fazenda got her start […]

Julia Faye (1893 - 1966)

Julia Faye was born Julia Faye Covell at her grandmother’s home near Richmond, Virginia. Her father was French. She had lived in St. Louis, Missouri prior to coming to Hollywood in 1916, to visit friends. She visited one of the film studios and was introduced to Christy Cabanne. The two reminisced about St. Louis and discovered […]

Frances Faye (1912 - 1991)

Born as Frances Cohen, Frances Faye’s showbiz career began at the age of 15 in nightclubs where she first became a star. She appeared in one Bing Crosby film; Double or Nothing singing “After You”. She wrote the song “Well All Right” recorded by the Andrews Sisters. Faye made her solo recording debut in 1936. […]

Myrna Fahey (1933 - 1973)

Myrna Fahey was born in Carmel, Maine, near Bangor in 1933, but grew up in Southwest Harbor near Bar Harbor, Maine, where she was a cheerleader at Pemetic High School. She began competing in local beauty pageants in the early 1950s. She acted one season at the Pasadena Playhouse before breaking into TV, and became […]

Faye Emerson (1917 - 1983)

Faye Emerson was born to Lawrence and Emma (née Smythe) Emerson in the tiny community of Elizabeth, Louisiana. She moved with her mother to San Diego before the war, where she took up acting and by 1940 was a Hollywood starlet. Faye Emerson appeared in a number of crime dramas, co-starring with Zachary Scott in three: […]

Patricia Ellis (1916 - 1970)

Born Patricia Leftwich in Birmingham, Michigan, the daughter of Alexander and Margaret Leftwich, her father was “an eminent New York producer of musical shows.” She had a brother, Alexander Leftwich Jr. Her childhood activities included singing and dancing, and she learned French and German. A 1932 newspaper article said, “Since she was able to walk, Patricia […]

Mary Ellis (1897 - 2003)

Mary Ellis was born May Belle Elsas in New York City in 1897. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera on December 14, 1918, in the world premiere of Puccini’s Il trittico, creating the role of Genovieffa in Suor Angelica, the second of the evening’s three one-act operas. Later in the run, she also […]

Patricia Elliott (1938 - 2015)

Patricia Elliott was born July 21, 1938 in Gunnison, Colorado to Clyde and Lavon (née Gibson) Elliott. She claimed direct descent from President Ulysses S. Grant, John Winthrop (first governor of Massachusetts) and Mary Lyon (founder of what would become Mount Holyoke College). She graduated from South High School, Denver. Patricia Elliott graduated from the University […]

Vera Ellen (1921 - 1981)

Vera-Ellen Westmeier Rohe was born in Norwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, to Martin F. Rohe, a piano dealer, and Alma Catherine Westmeier, both descended from German immigrants. Her hyphenated name originated in her mother’s dream in which she had a daughter named “Vera-Ellen.” Vera Ellen began dancing at age 10 and quickly became proficient. (One […]

Ruth Elder (1902 - 1977)

Ruth Elder (1902-1977) was a pilot and actress. She carried private pilot certificate P675, and was known as the “Miss America of Aviation.” Ruth Elder was a charter member of the Ninety-Nines. Known as “Miss America of Aviation,” she was the first woman to attempt a flight across the Atlantic from the United States to […]

Dagmar (1921 - 2001)

After her marriage to Angelo Lewis in 1941, she moved to New York where he was a Naval officer, stationed at Navy Ferry Command on Long Island. Dagmar adopted Jennie Lewis as her stage name (taken from her real life married name, Virginia Lewis). To keep busy, she became a fashion photographer’s model, and in […]

Nora Eddington (1924 - 2001)

Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1924, the daughter of Jack Eddington of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office, Nora Eddington was nineteen when she met Errol Flynn in February 1943 – at the time, she was working at the courthouse where Flynn’s notorious 1943 trial for statutory rape was taking place. Flynn was acquitted and […]

Minta Durfee (1889 - 1975)

She met Roscoe Arbuckle when he was attempting to get started in theater, and the two married in August 1908. Durfee entered show business in local companies as a chorus girl at the age of seventeen. She was the first leading lady of Charlie Chaplin. Minta Durfee and Arbuckle separated in 1921, just prior to a […]

June Duprez (1918 - 1984)

The daughter of American vaudeville performer Fred Duprez and Australian Florence Isabelle Matthews, June Duprez was born in Teddington, Middlesex, England, during an air raid in the final months of World War I. June Duprez began acting in her teens with the Coventry repertory company after studying at the Froebel Institute, and was a film extra […]

Mildred Dunnock (1901 - 1991)

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she graduated from Western Senior High School. Dunnock was a school teacher who did not start acting until she was in her early thirties. She attended Goucher College where she was a member of Alpha Phi sorority. After a couple of roles in Broadway productions during the 1930s, Mildred Dunnock won praise […]

Josephine Dunn (1906 - 1983)

Josephine Dunn (May 1, 1906 – February 3, 1983) was an American film actress of the 1920s and 1930s. Born in New York City, Dunn began her career in Hollywood with a small role alongside Thelma Todd in the 1926 film Fascinating Youth. Dunn became associated with what would become known as the “Algonquin Round Table”, […]

Mary Duncan (1895 - 1993)

Mary Duncan was born Mary Annie Dungan in Northumberland County, Virginia, the sixth of eight children born to Capt. William Dungan and his wife, Ada Thaddeus Douglass. She attended Cornell University before settling on acting as a career. She began her career as a child actress playing on the Broadway stage from 1910. In 1926 […]

Steffi Duna (1910 - 1992)

Born Stephanie Berindey in Budapest of Czech extraction, Steffi Duna started dancing at the age of nine and first attracted attention as a thirteen-year-old ballet dancer in Europe. Duna made her first stage appearance performing dramatized fairy tales at the Children’s Theater of Budapest. Initially opposed to the idea, her father sent her to the […]

Margaret Dumont (1882 - 1965)

Margaret Dumont was born Daisy Juliette Baker in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of William and Harriet Anna (née Harvey) Baker. As a child, she lived in the South, where she was mainly raised by her godfather, writer Joel Chandler Harris. She grew to stand 5′ 9″ (1.75 m). Margaret Dumont trained as an operatic singer […]

Joanne Dru (1922 - 1996)

Born as Joan Letitia LaCock in Logan, West Virginia, Joanne Dru came to New York City in 1940 at the age of eighteen. After finding employment as a model, she was chosen by Al Jolson to appear in the cast of his Broadway show Hold On to Your Hats. When she moved to Hollywood, she […]

Betty Driver (1920 - 2011)

At the age of 8, Betty Driver began performing professionally, forced by her mother to appear with Terence Byron Repertory Theatre Company.[4] She was singing for the BBC by the age of 10 and began touring across the UK in her first revue at the age of 12. While performing in London at the age […]

Ellen Drew (1915 - 2003)

Ellen Drew (November 23, 1915 – December 3, 2003) was an American film actress. Born Terry Ray in Kansas City, Missouri, Drew worked various jobs and won a number of beauty contests before becoming an actress. Moving to Hollywood in an attempt to become a star, she was discovered while working at an ice cream parlor […]

Louise Dresser (1878 - 1965)

Louise Dresser (October 17, 1878 – April 24, 1965) was an American actress. Born Louise Josephine Kerlin in Evansville, Indiana. Her father was a train conductor who died when she was fifteen years old. She starred in several films in the silent era. She had acted on the stage previously, being a Vaudeville singer at age fifteen […]

Ruth Draper (1884 - 1956)

Ruth Draper was born in New York City, the youngest child of Dr. William Henry and Ruth (née Dana) Draper. Her father, who was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, had the affluence to support a large family with the help of several servants. Ruth Draper’s mother was the daughter of Charles Anderson Dana, editor and publisher […]

Frances Drake (1912 - 2000)

Frances Drake (October 22, 1912 – January 18, 2000) was an American actress, best known for playing Eponine in Les Misérables (1935). Frances Drake was born in New York City as Frances Morgan Dean to a wealthy family. She was educated at Havergal College in Canada and was in London visiting relatives when the stock market […]

Dona Drake (1914 - 1989)

Dona Drake was born Eunice Westmoreland in Miami, Florida, in 1914 to Joseph Andrew Westmoreland of Arkansas and his wife, Novella Smith of Alabama. She was one of their five children. Entering show business in the 1930s, she used the names Una Velon, Rita Rio and Rita Shaw. She settled on the stage name Dona Drake […]

Ellen Albertini Dow (1913 - 2015)

Ellen Albertini Dow (November 16, 1913 – May 4, 2015) was an American character actress. She portrayed feisty old ladies and may be best known as the rapping grandmother in The Wedding Singer (1998). Dow’s other film roles include the elderly lady who “outs” her grandson in Wedding Crashers, Disco Dottie in 54, the recipient […]

Billie Dove (1903 - 1997)

Billie Dove (May 14, 1903 – December 31, 1997) was an American actress. Billie Dove was born Bertha Bohny in 1903 to Charles and Bertha (née Kagl) Bohny, Swiss immigrants. As a teen, she worked as a model to help support her family and was hired as a teenager by Florenz Ziegfeld to appear in his […]

Yolande Donlan (1920 - 2014)

The daughter of James Donlan, a character actor in Hollywood films of the 1930s, it is speculated by some that she had uncredited roles in films such as Pennies From Heaven (1936) and Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), but this has not been confirmed. Her early credited roles include Frenchy, the maid in the horror film […]

Columba Domínguez (1929 - 2014)

Columba Domínguez Adalid born on March 4, 1929 in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico, reaching very young with her family to the Mexico City. When she went to a party with one of her sisters, was discovered by the Mexican film director Emilio Fernández, who was amazed by her beauty with very marked Mexican features and gives […]