Madge Evans (born Margherita Harrison Evans; July 1, 1909 – April 26, 1981) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress.[2] She began her career as a child performer and model.
Biography
Child model and stage actress
Born in Manhattan,[3] Madge Evans was featured in print ads as the "Fairy Soap girl" when she was two years old.[4] She made her professional debut at the age of six months, posing as an artist's model. As a youth, her playmates included Robert Warwick, Holbrook Blinn, and Henry Hull. When she was four years old, Evans was featured in a series of child plays produced by William A. Brady. She worked at the old movie studio in Long Island, New York. Her success was immediate, so much so that her mother loaned her daughter's name to a hat company. Evans posed in a mother and child tableau with Anita Stewart, then 16, for an Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company calendar, and as the little mountain girl in Heidi of the Alps.
A very young Evans (girl sitting on table at center) in the Broadway production Peter Ibbetson (1917)Evans with actor William T. Carleton in Home Wanted (1919)
Evans, c. 1932
At the age of 8 in 1917, Evans appeared in the Broadway production of Peter Ibbetson with John Barrymore,[4]Constance Collier and Laura Hope Crews. At 17, she returned to the stage and appeared as the ingenue in Daisy Mayme. Some of her better work in plays came in productions of Dread, The Marquis, and The Conquering Male. Her last appearance was in Philip Goes Forth produced by George Kelley. Evans' mother took her to England and Europe when she was 15.
She was working on stage when she signed with Metro Goldwyn Mayer in 1927. As with theater, she continued to play ingenue parts, often as the fiancé of the leading man. She played the love interest to both Al Jolson and Frank Morgan in the 1933 film Hallelujah, I'm a Bum.
In 1960, for Evans' contribution to the motion picture industry, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1752 Vine Street.[5]
Marriage
In York Village, Maine, on July 25, 1939, she married playwright Sidney Kingsley,[6] best known for his plays Dead End and Detective Story. The couple owned a 250-acre (1,000,000 m2) estate in Oakland, New Jersey. Following her marriage to Kingsley, Evans left Hollywood and moved to this home in New Jersey.
Los Angeles Times, Marriages In Hollywood Exceed Divorces In 1939, January 2, 1940, Page A1.
Los Angeles Times, Child Film Star, Ingenue Madge Evans Dies at 71, April 27, 1981, Page A1.
Oakland, California Tribune, Two Wise Young Maidens, January 10, 1937, Page 80.
San Mateo Times, A Defence of Youth, January 18, 1936, Page 15.
Syracuse Herald, Madge Evans, Joan Marsh, and Jackie Coogan head Sextet Surviving, Sunday Morning, July 19, 1931, Section 3, Page 11.
Zanesville, Ohio Signal, Madge Evans Has Role With James Cagney, July 16, 1933, Page 12.
References
^"New York, New York City Births, 1846-1909", Margherita Harrison Evans, July 1, 1909, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States; microfilm image (FHL microfilm 1,992,693) of original document in New York Municipal Archives, New York City; accessed online via FamilySearch archives, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 25, 2024.
^Terrace, Vincent (2011). Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010 (2nd ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. p. 664. ISBN978-0-7864-6477-7.
^"Who's who in the current films". The New York Times. New York, NY. June 19, 1932. Madge Evans, who is in "Huddle" with Ramon Novarro this week, started out as a pictorial child.
Further reading
Dye, David. Child and Youth Actors: Filmography of Their Entire Careers, 1914-1985. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1988, pp. 70-71.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Madge Evans.
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