1909-1981
Actress of stage and screen, and print model Margherita "Madge" Evans was born on this day in New York City. Her career in front of a camera started when she was just an infant; further, she was just five years old when she appeared in her first film in 1914: Shore Acres (though, The Sign of the Cross is often cited as her debut). She next appeared in three films in uncredited child parts. Her fourth film appearance, however, was in the leading role; The Seven Sisters (1915) was a Sidney Olcott directed comedy based on a Edith Ellis play. Also in 1915, she had her first "walk on" role in Frank Hall Crane's The Man Who Found Himself. From the time that she started film work, she had steady work, despite her young age. In addition to her film work as a child actor, she made her Broadway debut at the age of 8; and also continued her modeling career. By the time she reached her teens, her films appearances slowed consierably. She was only in five films in the 1920's, and none of those was after 1924. The first of these was, the Frederick A. Thomson short Heidi; and the last was the 1924 John S. Robertson melodrama Classmates starring Richard Barthelmess (a childhood friend of hers). She then spent several years acting on the stage. Upon turning 18 in 1927, she signed with MGM, but she did not show up in a film produced by the studio until 1931 when appeared in the Ramon Novarro romantic drama Son of India; she instead showed up in a series of Arthur Hurley shorts made for Warner Bros.--the first of which was Many Happy Returns--in 1930. Today her most recognizable film role from this period comes in MGM's 1933 comedy Dinner At Eight. Evans married playwright Sidney Kingley in 1939 and retired from movie acting altogether. The couple moved to an estate in New Jersey, which later occassioned her the opportunity to work in both radio and television in New York. She made her television debut in 1949 as Elizabeth Bennett in the The Philco Television Playhouse staging of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. She made another appearance of the series the following years. She made her return to movie acting, this time for the small screen, as the star of Mrs. Thanksgiving in 1952. Her last acting role before her permanent retirement to her estate came in a 1958 episode of the series "The Investigator". She did show up one last time on television in 1978 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center Tribute to George Cukor. Evans died only three years later at her home in Oakland, New Jersey after a battle with cancer on the 26th of April; she was 71 years old. She was cremated and her ashes were stored at her home in New Jersey.
Evans with William T. Carleton in Home Wanted (1919)
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