1904-1960
Almost completely unheard of actress and later long time employee at 20th Century Fox Melva Frances Cornell was born on this day in Santa Barbara. Both of her parents worked for the Santa Barbara based studio The American Film Company, so it is little surprise that growing up around the burgeoning film industry, Cornell would get bitten by the acting bug. She did appear on the stage on both coasts in a few plays, but she is formally listed as acting in only one film: Fox Movietone Follies of 1929, the musical celebrating Fox the studio and it's new all sound films (the film is also thought lost). Her role is not named, though she does get a full credit (Google for some reason returns a search result that she was in the also lost full talkie from Fox The Girl from Havana in 1929, I combed through every source I could find online and found nothing--without time to check other sources this will just have to remain a question mark for the time being). After she lost her husband and her son within a few years of each other in the early 1940's, she reportedly went to work at 20th Century Fox; so she stayed in the film industry--just behind the scenes. It affords the rare opportunity to praise the hundreds of people who work in jobs like these that make our viewing pleasures possible! She died at just the age of 55 in Los Angeles on the 19th of January in 1960. She is buried under her married name of Lachmann, next to her young son at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.
[Source: Romper90069 (Find A Grave)]
No comments:
Post a Comment