Marilyn Knowlden, Famed Child Actress in Six Best Picture Nominees, Dies at 99
She was in 'Little Women,' 'Imitation of Life,' 'Les Misérables,' 'David Copperfield,' 'Anthony Adverse' and 'All This, and Heaven Too.'
Marilyn Knowlden, the busy child actress of the 1930s and ’40s who appeared in Little Women with Katharine Hepburn, Imitation of Life with Claudette Colbert, Les Misérables with Fredric March and in three other Oscar best picture nominees, has died. She was 99.
Knowlden died Monday of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Eagle, Idaho, her son Kevin Goates told The Hollywood Reporter.
During a career in Hollywood that spanned just 1931-44 but included more than three dozen pictures, Knowlden collaborated with Colbert, Hepburn, Irene Dunne and Norma Shearer as her onscreen moms in Imitation of Life (1934), A Woman Rebels (1936), Show Boat (1936) and Marie Antoinette (1938), respectively.
Related Stories
“A special relationship can develop with the actress who plays a child’s mother, even if that bond is temporary,” she told author Nick Thomas in 2016.
Another highlight for Knowlden included a turn as a younger version of Ann Sheridan’s character in the classic Michael Curtiz-directed Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart.
Her other best picture nominees were George Cukor’s David Copperfield (1935), where she portrayed Lewis Stone’s piano-playing daughter alongside Freddie Bartholomew; Mervyn LeRoy’s Anthony Adverse (1936), starring March and Olivia de Havilland; and Anatole Litvak’s All This, and Heaven Too (1940), starring Bette Davis and Charles Boyer. None of her movies won the top Oscar, however.
Knowlden always worked as a freelancer, never under contract at any studio.
“Well, my father was very much in control of my career, and he didn’t want me to be under contract,” she told Danny Miller in a 2018 interview for Cinephiled. “I think one of the reasons is that if you’re a child under contract, you have to go to the studio school, and there goes your normal life. I think he was very happy to have things the way they were.”
No comments:
Post a Comment