Madge Evans
Encyclopedia
Madge Evans was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 stage and film actress. She began her career as a child performer and model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

.

Child model and stage actress

Born as Margherita Evans, Madge Evans was featured in print ads as the 'Fairy Soap
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....

 girl' as an infant. She made her professional debut at the age of six months, posing for artist's models. As a youth, her playmates included Robert Warwick, Holbrook Blinn
Holbrook Blinn
Holbrook Blinn was an American actor, born in San Francisco. He appeared on the legitimate stage as a child, and played throughout the United States and in London. He appeared in silent films, and was the director of popular one-act plays at New York's Princess Theatre.In 1900, he appeared in...

, and Henry Hull
Henry Hull
Henry Watterson Hull was an American character actor with a unique voice, most noted for playing the lead in Universal Pictures's Werewolf of London .-Life and career:Hull was born in Louisville, Kentucky...

. When she was four years old, Evans was featured in a series of child plays produced by William A. Brady
William A. Brady
William Aloysius Brady, Sr. was an American theatre actor, producer, and sports promoter.-Biography:Brady was born to a newspaperman in 1863. His father kidnapped him from San Francisco and brought him to New York City, where his father worked as a writer while William was forced to sell...

. She worked at the old Long Island, New York movie studio. 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
Anita Stewart
Anita Stewart was an American actress and film producer of the early silent film era.-Early life and career:...

, then 16, for an Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...

 Brewing Company calendar, and as the little mountain girl in Heidi of the Alps.

At the age of 8 in 1917, Evans appeared in the Broadway production of Peter Ibbetson with John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...

, Constance Collier
Constance Collier
Constance Collier was an English film actress and acting coach.-Life and career:Born Laura Constance Hardie, in Windsor, Berkshire, Collier made her stage debut at the age of 3, when she played Fairy Peasblossom in A Midsummer's Night Dream...

 and Laura Hope Crews
Laura Hope Crews
Laura Hope Crews was a leading actress of the American stage in the first decades of the 20th century who is best remembered today for her later work as a character actress in motion pictures of the 1930s...

. At 17, she returned to the stage and appeared as the ingenue (stock character)
Ingenue (stock character)
See also Disingenuous, which is not quite the antonym that it may seem!The ingénue is a stock character in literature, film, and a role type in the theatre; generally a girl or a young woman who is endearingly innocent and wholesome. Ingenue may also refer to a new young actress or one typecast in...

 in Daisy Mayme. Some of her best 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
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 when she was 15.

Film career

As a child film actress, Evans had quite a prolific career appearing in dozens of films. She appeared with Marguerite Clark
Marguerite Clark
Marguerite Clark was an American stage and silent film actress.-Early life and theater:Born to a farming family in Avondale, Cincinnati, Ohio, Clark was educated at a Roman Catholic boarding school in Cincinnati...

 in The Seven Sisters
The Seven Sisters (1915 film)
The Seven Sisters was a silent romantic comedy produced by Adolph Zukor and Daniel Frohman, and was directed by Sidney Olcott. The film is based on the ensemble play Seven Sisters by Edith Ellis Furness and Ferenc Herczeg....

(1915), a film with a large female ensemble that had been played on stage with Clark's rival Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

 and Laurette Taylor
Laurette Taylor
Laurette Taylor was an American stage and silent film actress.-Personal life:Laurette Taylor was born in New York City of Irish extraction as Loretta Helen Cooney.-Personal life:...

 in the cast. She was featured with Robert Warwick in Alias Jimmy Valentine
Alias Jimmy Valentine
Alias Jimmy Valentine is a 1928 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film directed by Jack Conway, and starring William Haines, Leila Hyams, Lionel Barrymore, and Karl Dane. It is sourced from the O. Henry story,A Retrieved Reformation which was turned into the 1910 play Alias Jimmy Valentine by Paul Armstrong. The...

(1915), a still extant film that has seen release on home video/DVD. At 14, she was the star of J. Stuart Blackton
J. Stuart Blackton
James Stuart Blackton , usually known as J. Stuart Blackton, was an Anglo-American film producer of the Silent Era, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and among the first filmmakers to use the techniques of stop-motion and drawn animation...

's rural melodrama On the Banks of the Wabash
On the Banks of the Wabash (1923 film)
On the Banks of the Wabash is a silent film rural melodrama directed by J. Stuart Blackton and produced and distributed by his movie company Vitagraph. The film is very loosely based on Paul Dresser's song/poem On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away. The film was an expensive production with...

(1923). She co-starred with Richard Barthelmess
Richard Barthelmess
Richard Semler "Dick" Barthelmess was an Oscar-nominated silent film star.-Early life:Barthelmess was educated at Hudson River Military Academy at Nyack and Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut...

 in Classmates
Classmates (1924 film)
Classmates is a silent drama film starring Richard Barthelmess, produced by his company Inspiration Pictures, and distributed by Associated First National Pictures....

(1924).

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 fiancée of the leading man.

Working for MGM in the 1930s, she appeared in Dinner at Eight
Dinner at Eight (film)
Dinner at Eight is a Pre-Code 1933 comedy of manners/drama produced by MGM Studios. The film was adapted to the screen by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz from the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, with additional dialogue supplied by Donald Ogden Stewart. Produced by David O...

(1933), Broadway to Hollywood (1933), Hell Below
Hell Below
Hell Below is an MGM film set in the Adriatic during World War I about submarine warfare based on Commander Edward Ellsberg's novel Pigboats, starring Robert Montgomery, Walter Huston, Robert Young, Madge Evans, and Jimmy Durante....

(1933), and David Copperfield
Personal History, Adventures, Experience, and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger is a 1935 American film based upon the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield...

(1935). In 1933, she starred with James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...

 in a melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

 entitled The Mayor of Hell, playing a pretty nurse who solicits the aid of a tough politician, played by Cagney. Other notable movies in which she appeared are Beauty for Sale
Beauty for Sale
Beauty for Sale is a 1933 film about the romantic entanglements of three beauty salon employees. It stars Madge Evans, Alice Brady, and Otto Kruger. It was based on the novel Beauty by Faith Baldwin.-Cast:*Madge Evans as Letty Lawson...

(1933), Grand Canary
Grand Canary (film)
Grand Canary is a 1934 Fox film of A. J. Cronin's novel of the same title. The film was produced by Jesse L. Lasky and directed by Irving Cummings.-Cast:*Warner Baxter as Dr. Harvey Leith*Madge Evans as Lady Mary Fielding...

(1934), What Every Woman Knows
What Every Woman Knows
What Every Woman Knows is a four-act play written by J. M. Barrie. It was first presented by the impresario Charles Frohman at the Duke of York's Theatre in London on 3 September 1908...

(1934), and Pennies From Heaven
Pennies from Heaven (1936 film)
Pennies from Heaven is a 1936 musical comedy film starring Bing Crosby and featuring Louis Armstrong in a supporting role. The movie was directed by Norman Z. McLeod and the screenplay was written by Jo Swerling from a story by William Rankin based on the novel The Peacock Feather by Katherine...

(1936).

Marriage

In 1939, she married playwright Sidney Kingsley
Sidney Kingsley
Sidney Kingsley was an American dramatist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Men in White in 1934.- Biography :...

, best known for his plays Dead End
Dead End
Dead End is a 1937 crime drama film. It is an adaptation of the Sidney Kingsley 1935 Broadway play of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Joel McCrea, and Sylvia Sidney...

and Detective Story
Detective Story (play)
Detective Story is a 1949 play in three acts by American playwright Sidney Kingsley. The play opened on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre on March 23, 1949 where it played until the production moved to the Broadhurst Theatre on July 3, 1950. The production closed on August 12, 1950 after 581 ...

which were later turned into popular films. The couple owned a 50 acres (202,343 m²) estate two miles (3 km) from Oakland, New Jersey
Oakland, New Jersey
Oakland is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 12,754.Oakland was incorporated as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 8, 1902, from portions of Franklin Township.-History:The Van Allen House...

. Following her marriage to Kingsley, Evans left Hollywood and moved to the New Jersey home.

Radio and television

Later, she worked in radio and television in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Evans performed on the Philco Television Playhouse (1949–1950), Studio One
Studio One (TV series)
Studio One is a long-running American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by the 26-year-old Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC.-Radio:...

(1954), Matinee Theater (1955), and The Alcoa Hour
The Alcoa Hour
The Alcoa Hour is a live anthology television series sponsored by Alcoa and telecast in the United States from 1955 to 1957. The series was seen Sundays on NBC at 9pm.-Overview:...

(1956). She refused repeated offers to return to Hollywood. She retired in 1971.

Madge Evans died at her home in Oakland, New Jersey
Oakland, New Jersey
Oakland is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 12,754.Oakland was incorporated as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 8, 1902, from portions of Franklin Township.-History:The Van Allen House...

 from cancer in 1981, aged 71.

Filmography

Year Film Role Notes
1914 Shore Acres Mildred
1915 Alias Jimmy Valentine Child locked in vault Uncredited
The Seven Sisters
The Seven Sisters (1915 film)
The Seven Sisters was a silent romantic comedy produced by Adolph Zukor and Daniel Frohman, and was directed by Sidney Olcott. The film is based on the ensemble play Seven Sisters by Edith Ellis Furness and Ferenc Herczeg....

Clara
The Master Hand Jean as a child
Zaza Child Uncredited
The Little Church Around the Corner Child
1916 The Devil's Toy Betty
Sudden Riches Little Emily
Husband and Wife Bessie
The Revolt Nannie Stevens
The Hidden Scar Dot
Seventeen Jane Baxter
The New South Georgia Gwynne as a child
1917 The Web of Desire Marjorie
Maternity Constance
Beloved Adventuress Francine at age 7
The Little Duchess Geraldine Carmichael
The Burglar Editha
The Corner Grocer Mary Brian at age 8
Adventures of Carol Carol Montgomery
The Little Patriot Undetermined role Uncredited
1918 Woman and Wife
The Gates of Gladness Beth Leeds
Wanted: A Mother Eileen Homer
True Blue Girl child Uncredited
Vengeance Young Nan as a girl
Stolen Orders Ruth Le Page as a child
The Golden Wall Madge Lathroop
Neighbors Clarissa Leigh
Heredity Nedda Trevor as a child
The Power and the Glory Deanie Consadine
The Love Net Patty Barnes
1919 The Love Defender Dolly Meredith
Three Green Eyes Child
Home Wanted Madge Dow
1920 Heidi Heidi
1923 On the Banks of the Wabash
On the Banks of the Wabash (1923 film)
On the Banks of the Wabash is a silent film rural melodrama directed by J. Stuart Blackton and produced and distributed by his movie company Vitagraph. The film is very loosely based on Paul Dresser's song/poem On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away. The film was an expensive production with...

Lisbeth
1924 Classmates
Classmates (1924 film)
Classmates is a silent drama film starring Richard Barthelmess, produced by his company Inspiration Pictures, and distributed by Associated First National Pictures....

Sylvia, her niece
1930 Envy Helen Short film
1931 Son of India Janice Darsey First film for MGM
Sporting Blood
Sporting Blood
Sporting Blood is a 1931 American MGM sports drama film directed by Charles Brabin. The film stars Clark Gable , Ernest Torrence and Madge Evans.-Plot:...

Miss 'Missy' Ruby
Guilty Hands Barbara 'Babs' Grant
Heartbreak Countess Vima Walden
West of Broadway Anne
1932 Lovers Courageous Mary Blayne
The Greeks Had a Word for Them
The Greeks Had a Word for Them
The Greeks Had a Word for Them , also known as Three Broadway Girls, is a Pre-Code comedy film directed by Lowell Sherman, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, and released by United Artists. It stars Joan Blondell, Madge Evans, and Ina Claire and is based on the play The Greeks Had a Word for It by Zoe Akins...

Polaire
Are You Listening?
Are You Listening? (film)
Are You Listening? is a 1932 drama film starring William Haines, Madge Evans and Anita Page. The film was directed by Harry Beaumont. It was Haines' final film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.-Plot:...

Laura O'Neil
Huddle Rosalie Stone
Fast Life Shirley
1933 Hallelujah, I'm a Bum
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (film)
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum is a 1933 American musical comedy film directed by Lewis Milestone in the Depression.The film stars Al Jolson as Bumper, a popular New York tramp, and both romanticizes and satirizes the hobo lifestyle that many people were forced into by the economic conditions of the time....

June Marcher
Hell Below
Hell Below
Hell Below is an MGM film set in the Adriatic during World War I about submarine warfare based on Commander Edward Ellsberg's novel Pigboats, starring Robert Montgomery, Walter Huston, Robert Young, Madge Evans, and Jimmy Durante....

Joan Standish
Made on Broadway Claire Bidwell
The Nuisance Dorothy Mason
The Mayor of Hell
The Mayor of Hell
The Mayor of Hell is a Warner Brothers film starring James Cagney. The film was remade in 1938 as Crime School with Humphrey Bogart taking over James Cagney's role and Hell's Kitchen with Ronald Reagan.-Plot:...

Dorothy Griffith
Dinner at Eight
Dinner at Eight (film)
Dinner at Eight is a Pre-Code 1933 comedy of manners/drama produced by MGM Studios. The film was adapted to the screen by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz from the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, with additional dialogue supplied by Donald Ogden Stewart. Produced by David O...

Paula Jordan
Broadway to Hollywood
Broadway to Hollywood (1933 film)
Broadway to Hollywood is a film directed by Willard Mack, produced by Harry Rapf, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film features many of MGM's stars of the time, including Frank Morgan, Alice Brady, Madge Evans, Jimmy Durante, Mickey Rooney, and Jackie Cooper...

Anne Ainsley
Beauty for Sale
Beauty for Sale
Beauty for Sale is a 1933 film about the romantic entanglements of three beauty salon employees. It stars Madge Evans, Alice Brady, and Otto Kruger. It was based on the novel Beauty by Faith Baldwin.-Cast:*Madge Evans as Letty Lawson...

Letty Lawson
Day of Reckoning Dorothy Day
1934 Fugitive Lovers Letty Morris
The Show-Off Amy Fisher Piper
Stand Up and Cheer!
Stand Up and Cheer!
Stand Up and Cheer! is a 1934 American musical film directed by Hamilton MacFadden. The screenplay by Lew Brown and Ralph Spence was based upon a story idea by Will Rogers and Philip Klein. The film is about efforts undertaken during the Great Depression to boost the morale of the country...

Mary Adams
Grand Canary
Grand Canary (film)
Grand Canary is a 1934 Fox film of A. J. Cronin's novel of the same title. The film was produced by Jesse L. Lasky and directed by Irving Cummings.-Cast:*Warner Baxter as Dr. Harvey Leith*Madge Evans as Lady Mary Fielding...

Lady Mary Fielding
Paris Interlude Julia 'Julie' Bell
Death on the Diamond
Death on the Diamond
Death on the Diamond is a 1934 mystery film starring Robert Young as a baseball player who has to figure out who is trying to murder the members of his team, the Saint Louis Cardinals...

Frances Clark
What Every Woman Knows
What Every Woman Knows (film)
What Every Woman Knows is a American comedy film directed by Gregory La Cava and starring Helen Hayes, Brian Aherne, and Madge Evans. The film was produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and is based on the play What Every Woman Knows by J. M. Barrie. It was filmed by Paramount back in...

Lady Sybil Tenterden
1935 Helldorado Glenda Wynant
David Copperfield Agnes
Age of Indiscretion Maxine Bennett
Calm Yourself Rosalind Rockwell
Men Without Names Helen Sherwood
The Tunnel
The Tunnel (1935 film)
The Tunnel, also known as Transatlantic Tunnel in the United States, is a 1935 British science fiction film based on the 1913 novel Der Tunnel by Bernhard Kellermann, about the building of a transatlantic tunnel. It was directed by Maurice Elvey and stars Richard Dix, Leslie Banks, Madge Evans,...

Ruth McAllan
1936 Exclusive Story Ann Devlin
Moonlight Murder Antonia 'Toni' Adams
Piccadilly Jim
Piccadilly Jim (1936 film)
Piccadilly Jim is a 1936 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. The film is based on the 1917 novel of the same name written by P. G. Wodehouse.-Plot:...

Ann Chester
Pennies from Heaven
Pennies from Heaven (1936 film)
Pennies from Heaven is a 1936 musical comedy film starring Bing Crosby and featuring Louis Armstrong in a supporting role. The movie was directed by Norman Z. McLeod and the screenplay was written by Jo Swerling from a story by William Rankin based on the novel The Peacock Feather by Katherine...

Susan Sprague
1937 Espionage Patricia Booth
The Thirteenth Chair Nell O'Neill
1938 Sinners in Paradise
Sinners in Paradise
- Plot summary :A passenger aircraft crashes in mid-Pacific and some of the survivors reach an island inhabited only by an American, Jim Taylor, with his Chinese servant, Ping. He declines to help them, telling them to build their own shelter and gather their own food and, though he has a boat and...

Anne Wesson
Army Girl
Army Girl
Army Girl is a 1938 American comedy film directed by George Nichols Jr.-Cast:* Madge Evans as Julie Armstrong* Preston Foster as Capt. Dike Conger* James Gleason as Sgt. 'Three Star' Hennessy...

Julie Armstrong

Articles

  • Los Angeles Times
    Los Angeles Times
    The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

    , 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
    Oakland, California
    Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

     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
    Joan Marsh
    Joan Marsh was an American film actress.Marsh was the daughter of Charles Rosher. She made her first film appearance as an infant in the Universal Pictures film Hearts Aflame , billed as Dorothy Rosher...

    , and Jackie Coogan
    Jackie Coogan
    John Leslie Coogan , known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family...

     head Sextet Surviving
    , Sunday Morning, July 19, 1931, Section 3, Page 11.
  • Zanesville, Ohio
    Zanesville, Ohio
    Zanesville is a city in and the county seat of Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. The population was 25,586 at the 2000 census.Zanesville was named after Ebenezer Zane, who had constructed Zane's Trace, a pioneer road through present-day Ohio...

    Signal
    , Madge Evans Has Role With James Cagney, July 16, 1933, Page 12.

External links

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