Who Am I? January 2025
I was born in a hotel bedroom on 96th Street off of Central Park West at the dawn of the 20th century. My dad, Ed, was of Polish-Jewish descent. Ed was a producer and a performer in vaudeville shows and he spotted his future wife, my mom, in the audience of one of his matinees and introduced himself to her after the show. Dad was almost 20 years her senior so mom’s suspicious Irish brothers made sure the two of them were well chaperoned until they determined that Ed’s intentions were honorable! We were a vagabond, vaudeville family always looking for our next job and our journeys took us far and wide - to Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and China. In the U.S. we toured with Orpheum Circuit. In essence, because I spent so much time on the road, touring was my early education. In those years I probably attended 40-50 schools as we were always on the move. I did attend high school in Santa Monica, CA for awhile where I became an excellent swimmer and president of the dramatic club.
I’d done an assortment of odd jobs as a salesgirl, circulating librarian, and fashion model before joining a stock company to perform on the legitimate stage. Remarkably, I was to have an incredible career on both stage and screen. Though I mostly got second billing, I appeared in over 80 feature films, 50 of them made between 1930 and 1938. I always remembered my dad’s advice to me, “Just go out there and love ‘em; then, they’ve got to love you back.”
Those of you who like pre-Production Code Hollywood movies will probably remember me as a brash wisecracking, blue-eyed, working class blonde in both gangster movies and Hollywood musicals. I got to co-star with giants of the silver screen such as William Powell, Dick Powell, Lyle Talbot and Warren William. I did receive one Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and was twice nominated for Emmys and for Golden Globe awards.
I do have some New Jersey bona fides too. In the mid-1920’s I placed near the top in the Miss America contest in Atlantic City. Later, in the mid-1950’s I appeared in a play by Anita Loos at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn. Also, in 2016, the Landmark Lowe’s Jersey Theater in Jersey City chose one of my films to show and feature on the big screen. I think you know me by now. That’s me rub-a-dub-dub in a tub in an early movie scene of mine taken from the silver screen in the photo below.
(1a)Who Am I? (1b)I wrote a novel which was actually rather autobiographical. What is its title? (1c)Liz and I were once married to a Hollywood producer who was a compulsive gambler and big spender. What was his name? (2a) In one film that I made I sang a tribute to the doughboys of the Great War who had fallen on hard times during the Depression of the 1930’s. What was the name of that song and in what movie did I belt it out? (2b) Occasionally, I would take a dramatic role in a film. One of my favorites was as “Aunt Sissy.” In what movie did I play the role of Aunt Sissy? (2c)Early in my stage career I teamed up with a cocky, tough, red-haired Irish-American actor in a play written by Pulitzer Prize winner George Kelly. We sparked together and were summoned together to Hollywood where we made 7 films together. What was the name of that Kelly play? (2d)Who was that cocky actor mentioned in Question (2c)? Here’s a hint – not only was he a screen tough guy but he was quite a darn good hoofer as well. Name 2 films we co-starred in. (3a) I also co-starred 7 times with a very attractive wisecracking blonde comedienne in the 1930’s. Who was she and name 2 films we co-starred in? (4a) What play, mentioned above, did I appear in at the Paper Mill Playhouse? (4b)Why is the date 2/8/60 important to me?
