Margaret Lindsay
Encyclopedia
Margaret Lindsay was an American film actress. Her time as a Warner Bros.
contract player during the 1930s was particularly productive. She was noted for her supporting work in successful films of the 1930s and 1940s such as Jezebel (1938) and Scarlet Street
(1945) and her leading roles in lower-budgeted B movie
films such as the Ellery Queen
series at Columbia in the early 1940s. Critics regard her portrayal of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hepzibah Pyncheon in the 1940 film adaptation of The House of the Seven Gables
as Lindsay's standout career role.
, she was the oldest of six children of a pharmacist father who died in 1930 before her Hollywood career began. According to Tom Longden of the Des Moines Register
, "Peg" was "a tomboy who liked to climb pear trees" and was a "roller-skating fiend". She graduated in 1930 from Visitation Academy in Dubuque.
, Lindsay convinced her parents to enroll her at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
in New York. She then went abroad to England to make her stage debut. She appeared in plays such as Escape, Death Takes a Holiday, and The Romantic Age.
Lindsay was often mistaken as being British due to her convincing English accent, which impressed Universal Studios
enough to sign her for their 1932 version of The Old Dark House
. As James Robert Parish and William T. Leonard wrote in Hollywood Players: The Thirties (Arlington House, 1976), Lindsay returned to America and arrived in Hollywood, only to discover that Gloria Stuart
had been cast in her role in the film.
After some minor roles in Pre-Code
films such as Christopher Strong
and the groundbreaking Baby Face
, which starred Barbara Stanwyck
, Lindsay was cast in the Fox Film Corporation's award-winning Cavalcade. Lindsay was selected for a small but memorable role as Edith Harris, a doomed English bride whose honeymoon voyage takes place on the Titanic.
Lindsay won the role by backing up her British accent with an elaborate "biography" that claimed she was born in a London suburb, the daughter of a London broker who sent her to a London convent for her education. "Although I looked and talked English ... to tell them I was actually from Iowa would have lost the assignment for me", she later explained.
Her work in Cavalcade earned her a contract at Warner Bros.
where she became a reliable supporting player, working with Paul Muni
, Errol Flynn
, Henry Fonda
, Warren William
, Leslie Howard
, George Arliss
, Humphrey Bogart
, Boris Karloff
and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Lindsay was cast four times as the love interest of James Cagney
in Warner films from 1933-1935. She appeared with Cagney in four films: Frisco Kid, Devil Dogs of the Air
, G-Men
and Lady Killer
.
Lindsay co-starred with Bette Davis
in four Warners films: as Davis's sister in 1934's Fog Over Frisco
; in 1935's Dangerous
(for which Davis won her first Best Actress Academy Award); in Bordertown
, co-starring Paul Muni
, and, lastly, as Davis's rival for Henry Fonda
's affections in Jezebel (1938), which earned Davis her second Best Actress Academy Award.
An example of her work in a leading role in lower budget films while at Warner Bros. was 1936's The Law in Her Hands, in which she played a mob lawyer. As film historian John McCarty wrote, it was "that rarity among gangster films to offer a female in the male-dominated mouthpiece role". Author Roger Dooley identified the film as "being the only film of the 1930s to concern itself with a pair of female legal partners". Made after the Motion Picture Production Code came into effect, however, The Law in Her Hands was forced into adopting "a reactionary stance towards the gender switch", and concluded with a plot twist that was the complete opposite of the Pre-Code period (1929–1934), when "female characters on the screen could say, do, and be whatever they wanted".
in 1940, with George Sanders
and Vincent Price
. Directed by Joe May from a screenplay by Lester Cole
, the film's musical score by Frank Skinner
was nominated for an Academy Award
. Price recalled that "Margaret Lindsay was a delight to work with and a very good actress." Michael Brunas, John Brunas and Tom Weaver wrote in Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931-46 (McFarland, 1990), Lindsay, "...one of the loveliest and most talented of '30s leading ladies, contributes a fine, mature performance that's probably the best, certainly the most striking, in the picture....[h]ad a Bette Davis played Hepzibah, this same performance would be hailed as a classic..."
In a 2004 Classic Images
article about actor Jon Hall
, film historian Colin Briggs wrote that a letter he had received from Lindsay indicated that her part in The House of the Seven Gables was her "favorite role". Lindsay's letter to Briggs also stated that the film she had the most fun with was 1947's The Vigilantes Return
, in which she co-starred with Jon Hall. "...[That] role was a complete departure from my usual parts and I grabbed it.... I even warbled a Mae West
type ditty. As a man-chasing saloon singer after Jon Hall it was for me a totally extroverted style and I relished the opportunity.... I have a framed still from that film on a wall in my home."
Her 1940s film series
work in Hollywood included Columbia's first entry in its Crime Doctor
series, as well as her continuing role as Nikki Porter in Columbia's Ellery Queen series from 1940-1942. Author James Robert Parish wrote that "Columbia's one inspired touch in their Ellery Queen series was the addition of Nikki Porter ... as a freelance mystery writer who goes to work for Ellery as his secretary. She added a bubbling note of pretty distraction, since more often than not the plots called for her to do some amateur sleuthing to help out boss Ellery."
Author Jon Tuska's affection for the Ellery Queen series mystified its star Ralph Bellamy
. During an interview by Tuska for his 1978 book, The Detective in Hollywood, he remarked, "I'm one of the few who does [like the series]." "I don't know how," Bellamy replied. "They were such quickie pictures." Tuska cited Ellery Queen, Master Detective (1940) and Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery (1941) as the best of the Bellamy-Lindsay pairings. "The influence of The Thin Man
series was apparent in reverse", Tuska noted about Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery. "Ellery and Nikki are unmarried but obviously in love with each other. Probably the biggest mystery... is how Ellery ever gets a book written. Not only is Nikki attractive and perfectly willing to show off her figure", Tuska wrote, "but she also likes to write her own stories on Queen's time, and gets carried away doing her own investigations."
In Ellery Queen, Master Detective, "the amorous relationship between Ellery and Nikki Porter was given a dignity, and therefore integrity", Tuska wrote, "that was lacking in the two previous entries in the series", made at Republic Pictures
before Bellamy and Lindsay were signed by Columbia.
Lindsay appeared in a supporting role in the 1942 film, The Spoilers
, starring John Wayne
, and in Fritz Lang
's Scarlet Street
in 1945. While her work in the late 1940s would occasionally involve a supporting role in MGM
films like Cass Timberlane
with Spencer Tracy
, her film career went into decline, with roles in films at Poverty Row
studios like Monogram Pictures
and PRC. She returned to the stage and co-starred with Franchot Tone
in The Second Man.
, which allowed her to once again display her finely-honed British accent. More television work followed.
Lindsay appeared in only four films during the 1950s and two in the 1960s. Her final feature film was Tammy and the Doctor (1963).
and Edward Norris, she never married.
in 1981 at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles
, survived by her four sisters and one brother. She was buried at the Holy Cross Cemetery
in Culver City.
, actor William Hopper
, best known for his role as Paul Drake in the Perry Mason
television series. Their daughter Joan was born in 1942, and the couple divorced in the early 1960s.
Lindsay's niece Peggy Kenline and great-nephew Brad Yates were also actors.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
contract player during the 1930s was particularly productive. She was noted for her supporting work in successful films of the 1930s and 1940s such as Jezebel (1938) and Scarlet Street
Scarlet Street
Scarlet Street is a 1945 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang and based on the French novel La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardière, that previously had been dramatized on stage by André Mouëzy-Éon, and cinematically as La Chienne by director Jean Renoir.The principal actors Edward G...
(1945) and her leading roles in lower-budgeted B movie
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
films such as the Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
series at Columbia in the early 1940s. Critics regard her portrayal of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hepzibah Pyncheon in the 1940 film adaptation of The House of the Seven Gables
The House of the Seven Gables (novel)
The House of the Seven Gables is a Gothic novel written in 1851 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and published the same year by Ticknor and Fields of Boston. Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement in a New England family and colors the tale with suggestions of the...
as Lindsay's standout career role.
Early life
Born as Margaret Kies in Dubuque, IowaDubuque, Iowa
Dubuque is a city in and the county seat of Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, located along the Mississippi River. In 2010 its population was 57,637, making it the ninth-largest city in the state and the county's population was 93,653....
, she was the oldest of six children of a pharmacist father who died in 1930 before her Hollywood career began. According to Tom Longden of the Des Moines Register
Des Moines Register
The Des Moines Register is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa, in the United States. A separate edition of the Register is sold throughout much of Iowa.-History:...
, "Peg" was "a tomboy who liked to climb pear trees" and was a "roller-skating fiend". She graduated in 1930 from Visitation Academy in Dubuque.
1930s
After attending National Park Seminary in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, Lindsay convinced her parents to enroll her at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
American Academy of Dramatic Arts
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts is a fully accredited two-year conservatory with facilities located in Manhattan, New York City – at 120 Madison Avenue, in a landmark building designed by noted architect Stanford White as the original Colony Club – and in Hollywood, California...
in New York. She then went abroad to England to make her stage debut. She appeared in plays such as Escape, Death Takes a Holiday, and The Romantic Age.
Lindsay was often mistaken as being British due to her convincing English accent, which impressed Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
enough to sign her for their 1932 version of The Old Dark House
The Old Dark House
The Old Dark House is an American comedy horror film directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff, produced just one year after their success with Frankenstein, also released by Universal Studios.-Background:...
. As James Robert Parish and William T. Leonard wrote in Hollywood Players: The Thirties (Arlington House, 1976), Lindsay returned to America and arrived in Hollywood, only to discover that Gloria Stuart
Gloria Stuart
Gloria Frances Stuart was an American actress, activist, painter, bonsai artist and fine printer. Over a Hollywood career which spanned, with a long break in the middle, from 1932 until 2004, she appeared on stage, television, and film, for which she was best-known...
had been cast in her role in the film.
After some minor roles in Pre-Code
Pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood refers to the era in the American film industry between the introduction of sound in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor and it did not become rigorously...
films such as Christopher Strong
Christopher Strong
Christopher Strong is a 1933 RKO film, directed by Dorothy Arzner and starring Katharine Hepburn in her second screen role. The screenplay by Zoë Akins is adapted from the novel by Gilbert Frankau.-Synopsis:...
and the groundbreaking Baby Face
Baby Face (film)
Baby Face is a 1933 American dramatic film directed by Alfred E. Green, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent. Based on a story by Darryl F. Zanuck , this sexually-charged, Pre-Code Hollywood film is about an attractive young woman who uses sex to advance her social and financial status...
, which starred Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
, Lindsay was cast in the Fox Film Corporation's award-winning Cavalcade. Lindsay was selected for a small but memorable role as Edith Harris, a doomed English bride whose honeymoon voyage takes place on the Titanic.
Lindsay won the role by backing up her British accent with an elaborate "biography" that claimed she was born in a London suburb, the daughter of a London broker who sent her to a London convent for her education. "Although I looked and talked English ... to tell them I was actually from Iowa would have lost the assignment for me", she later explained.
Her work in Cavalcade earned her a contract at Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
where she became a reliable supporting player, working with Paul Muni
Paul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...
, Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
, Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
, Warren William
Warren William
Warren William was a Broadway and Hollywood actor, popular during the early 1930s, who was later nicknamed the "king of Pre-Code". He was born Warren William Krech in Aitkin, Minnesota to parents Freeman E. and Frances Krech. He had a certain physical resemblance to John Barrymore. He attended the...
, Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard (actor)
Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square , Of Human Bondage , The Scarlet Pimpernel , The Petrified Forest , Pygmalion , Intermezzo , Pimpernel Smith...
, George Arliss
George Arliss
George Arliss was an English actor, author and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award.-Life and career:...
, Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
, Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...
Lindsay was cast four times as the love interest of 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 Warner films from 1933-1935. She appeared with Cagney in four films: Frisco Kid, Devil Dogs of the Air
Devil Dogs of the Air
Devil Dogs of the Air is a 1935 Warner Bros. propaganda film, directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, reprising their earlier roles as buddies after making their debut as a "buddy team" in Here Comes the Navy. Devil Dogs of the Air was the second of nine features that...
, G-Men
G Men
G Men is a 1935 Warner Bros. crime film starring James Cagney and Ann Dvorak. It also marked Lloyd Nolan's film debut. According to Variety Magazine, it was one of the top-grossing films of 1935....
and Lady Killer
Lady Killer
A lady killer is a man exceptionally attractive to women. The phrase may also refer to:-Films:*The Lady Killer , a 1913 silent short*Lady Killer , a 1933 movie starring James Cagney...
.
Lindsay co-starred with Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
in four Warners films: as Davis's sister in 1934's Fog Over Frisco
Fog Over Frisco
Fog Over Frisco is a 1934 American drama film directed by William Dieterle. The screenplay by Robert N. Lee and Eugene Solow was based on the short story The Five Fragments by George Dyer.-Plot:...
; in 1935's Dangerous
Dangerous (film)
Dangerous is a 1935 American drama film directed by Alfred E. Green and starring Bette Davis in her first Oscar-winning role. The screenplay by Laird Doyle is based on his story Hard Luck Dame.-Plot synopsis:...
(for which Davis won her first Best Actress Academy Award); in Bordertown
Bordertown (1935 film)
Bordertown is a 1935 American drama film directed by Archie Mayo. The screenplay by Laird Doyle and Wallace Smith is based on Robert Lord's adaptation of the 1934 novel Border Town by Carroll Graham....
, co-starring Paul Muni
Paul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...
, and, lastly, as Davis's rival for Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
's affections in Jezebel (1938), which earned Davis her second Best Actress Academy Award.
An example of her work in a leading role in lower budget films while at Warner Bros. was 1936's The Law in Her Hands, in which she played a mob lawyer. As film historian John McCarty wrote, it was "that rarity among gangster films to offer a female in the male-dominated mouthpiece role". Author Roger Dooley identified the film as "being the only film of the 1930s to concern itself with a pair of female legal partners". Made after the Motion Picture Production Code came into effect, however, The Law in Her Hands was forced into adopting "a reactionary stance towards the gender switch", and concluded with a plot twist that was the complete opposite of the Pre-Code period (1929–1934), when "female characters on the screen could say, do, and be whatever they wanted".
1940s
Perhaps Lindsay's finest film role was in The House of the Seven GablesThe House of the Seven Gables
The House of the Seven Gables is a 1668 colonial mansion in Salem, Massachusetts, USA. The house is now a non-profit museum, with an admission fee charged for tours, as well as an active settlement house with programs for children...
in 1940, with George Sanders
George Sanders
George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
and Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
. Directed by Joe May from a screenplay by Lester Cole
Lester Cole
Lester Cole was an American screenwriter.Born in New York City, Lester Cole began his career as an actor but soon turned to screenwriting. His first work was "If I had a Million." In 1933, he joined with John Howard Lawson and Samuel Ornitz to establish the Writers Guild of America.In 1934, Cole...
, the film's musical score by Frank Skinner
Frank Skinner
Frank Skinner is a British writer, comedian and actor. He is best known for his television presenting, often alongside David Baddiel, with whom he also collaborated for the football song "Three Lions."He is a radio presenter on the Saturday morning slot on Absolute Radio.-Youth and early career...
was nominated for an Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
. Price recalled that "Margaret Lindsay was a delight to work with and a very good actress." Michael Brunas, John Brunas and Tom Weaver wrote in Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931-46 (McFarland, 1990), Lindsay, "...one of the loveliest and most talented of '30s leading ladies, contributes a fine, mature performance that's probably the best, certainly the most striking, in the picture....[h]ad a Bette Davis played Hepzibah, this same performance would be hailed as a classic..."
In a 2004 Classic Images
Classic Images
Classic Images is a monthly American mail-subscription newspaper in tabloid format, founded in 1962 by film collector Sam Rubin, dedicated to film and television of the "Golden Age." Its offices are located in Muscatine, Iowa and it is published by the Muscatine Journal division of Lee Enterprises,...
article about actor Jon Hall
Jon Hall
Jon Hall was an American film actor.-Biography:Born Charles Felix Locher in Fresno, California, and raised in Tahiti by his father, the Swiss-born actor Felix Locher, he was a nephew of James Norman Hall, one of the authors of Mutiny on the Bounty...
, film historian Colin Briggs wrote that a letter he had received from Lindsay indicated that her part in The House of the Seven Gables was her "favorite role". Lindsay's letter to Briggs also stated that the film she had the most fun with was 1947's The Vigilantes Return
The Vigilantes Return
The Vigilantes Return is a 1947 western film produced by Universal Pictures in Cinecolor. The film was shot in Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California.-Plot:...
, in which she co-starred with Jon Hall. "...[That] role was a complete departure from my usual parts and I grabbed it.... I even warbled a Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
type ditty. As a man-chasing saloon singer after Jon Hall it was for me a totally extroverted style and I relished the opportunity.... I have a framed still from that film on a wall in my home."
Her 1940s film series
Film series
A film series is a collection of related films in succession. Their relationship is not fixed, but generally share a common diegetic world. Sometimes the work is conceived as a multiple-film work, for example the Three Colours series, but in most cases the success of the original film inspires...
work in Hollywood included Columbia's first entry in its Crime Doctor
Crime Doctor (character)
The Crime Doctor is a fictional character created by Max Marcin. A crook named Phil Morgan suffers amnesia and becomes criminal psychologist Dr. Robert Ordway....
series, as well as her continuing role as Nikki Porter in Columbia's Ellery Queen series from 1940-1942. Author James Robert Parish wrote that "Columbia's one inspired touch in their Ellery Queen series was the addition of Nikki Porter ... as a freelance mystery writer who goes to work for Ellery as his secretary. She added a bubbling note of pretty distraction, since more often than not the plots called for her to do some amateur sleuthing to help out boss Ellery."
Author Jon Tuska's affection for the Ellery Queen series mystified its star Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Bellamy was an American actor whose career spanned sixty-two years.-Early life:He was born Ralph Rexford Bellamy in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Lilla Louise , a native of Canada, and Charles Rexford Bellamy. He ran away from home when he was fifteen and managed to get into a road show...
. During an interview by Tuska for his 1978 book, The Detective in Hollywood, he remarked, "I'm one of the few who does [like the series]." "I don't know how," Bellamy replied. "They were such quickie pictures." Tuska cited Ellery Queen, Master Detective (1940) and Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery (1941) as the best of the Bellamy-Lindsay pairings. "The influence of The Thin Man
The Thin Man (film)
The Thin Man is a 1934 American comic detective film starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a flirtatious married couple who banter wittily as they solve crimes with ease. Nick is a hard drinking retired detective and Nora a wealthy heiress...
series was apparent in reverse", Tuska noted about Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery. "Ellery and Nikki are unmarried but obviously in love with each other. Probably the biggest mystery... is how Ellery ever gets a book written. Not only is Nikki attractive and perfectly willing to show off her figure", Tuska wrote, "but she also likes to write her own stories on Queen's time, and gets carried away doing her own investigations."
In Ellery Queen, Master Detective, "the amorous relationship between Ellery and Nikki Porter was given a dignity, and therefore integrity", Tuska wrote, "that was lacking in the two previous entries in the series", made at Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
before Bellamy and Lindsay were signed by Columbia.
Lindsay appeared in a supporting role in the 1942 film, The Spoilers
The Spoilers (1942 film)
The Spoilers is a 1942 film directed by Ray Enright. The movie is set in Nome, Alaska during the Nome Gold Rush, with Marlene Dietrich as Cherry Malotte, Randolph Scott as Alexander McNamara, and John Wayne as Roy Glennister, and culminates in a spectacular saloon fistfight between McNamara and...
, starring John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
, and in Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's Scarlet Street
Scarlet Street
Scarlet Street is a 1945 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang and based on the French novel La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardière, that previously had been dramatized on stage by André Mouëzy-Éon, and cinematically as La Chienne by director Jean Renoir.The principal actors Edward G...
in 1945. While her work in the late 1940s would occasionally involve a supporting role in MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
films like Cass Timberlane
Cass Timberlane
Cass Timberlane is a novel written by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1945. It is Sinclair Lewis' nineteenth novel and one of his last.It was made into a romantic drama film starring Spencer Tracy and Lana Turner, directed by George Sidney, and released in 1947.Timberlane is a minor character in...
with Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
, her film career went into decline, with roles in films at Poverty Row
Poverty Row
Poverty Row is a slang term used in Hollywood from the late silent period through the mid-fifties to refer to a variety of small and mostly short-lived B movie studios...
studios like Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation is a Hollywood studio that produced and released films, most on low budgets, between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram is considered a leader among the smaller studios sometimes referred to...
and PRC. She returned to the stage and co-starred with Franchot Tone
Franchot Tone
Franchot Tone was an American stage, film, and television actor, star of Mutiny on the Bounty and many other films through the 1960s...
in The Second Man.
1950s and 1960s
She made her television debut in 1950 in The Importance of Being EarnestThe Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
, which allowed her to once again display her finely-honed British accent. More television work followed.
Lindsay appeared in only four films during the 1950s and two in the 1960s. Her final feature film was Tammy and the Doctor (1963).
Personal life
Early in her career, Lindsay lived with her sister Helen in Hollywood. Later in life, she lived with her youngest sister Mickie. Despite being romantically linked to actors such as William GarganWilliam Gargan
William Gargan, born William Dennis Gargan July 17, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, USA and died February 17, 1979 aged 73 on a flight between New York and San Diego.He was an American motion picture, television and radio actor...
and Edward Norris, she never married.
Death
Lindsay died at the age of 70 of emphysemaEmphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...
in 1981 at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, survived by her four sisters and one brother. She was buried at the Holy Cross Cemetery
Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City
Holy Cross Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery at 5835 West Slauson Avenue in Culver City, California, operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles....
in Culver City.
Family
Margaret Lindsay's sister, Jane Kies (1909–1985), was also an actress under the name of Jane Gilbert. In 1940, Jane married the son of Hedda HopperHedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...
, actor William Hopper
William Hopper
William Hopper, born DeWolf Hopper, Jr. was an American actor. He is best-remembered for playing Paul Drake on television's Perry Mason.-Early life:...
, best known for his role as Paul Drake in the Perry Mason
Perry Mason (TV series)
Perry Mason is an American legal drama produced by Paisano Productions that ran from September 1957 to May 1966 on CBS. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...
television series. Their daughter Joan was born in 1942, and the couple divorced in the early 1960s.
Lindsay's niece Peggy Kenline and great-nephew Brad Yates were also actors.
Selected filmography
- Okay, America! (1932)
- The Fourth Horseman (1932)
- Cavalcade (1933) (Academy Award for Best Picture)
- Christopher StrongChristopher StrongChristopher Strong is a 1933 RKO film, directed by Dorothy Arzner and starring Katharine Hepburn in her second screen role. The screenplay by Zoë Akins is adapted from the novel by Gilbert Frankau.-Synopsis:...
(1933) - Private Detective 62 (1933)
- From Headquarters (1933)
- Baby FaceBaby Face (film)Baby Face is a 1933 American dramatic film directed by Alfred E. Green, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent. Based on a story by Darryl F. Zanuck , this sexually-charged, Pre-Code Hollywood film is about an attractive young woman who uses sex to advance her social and financial status...
(1933) - VoltaireVoltaire (film)Voltaire is a 1933 biographical film starring George Arliss as the renowned 18th century French writer and philosopher.-Cast:*George Arliss as Voltaire*Doris Kenyon as Madame Pompadour*Margaret Lindsay as Nanette Calas...
(1933) - Captured!Captured!Captured! is a 1933 film about World War I prisoners of war in a German camp. It stars Leslie Howard and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and was based on the short story "Fellow Prisoners" by Sir Philip Gibbs.-Plot:...
(1933) - The World ChangesThe World ChangesThe World Changes is a 1933 drama film starring Paul Muni as an ambitious farm boy who becomes rich, but does not handle success well. Aline MacMahon and Mary Astor play his mother and wife respectively.-Cast:*Paul Muni as Orin Nordholm Jr....
(1933) - The House on 56th StreetThe House on 56th StreetThe House on 56th Street is a 1933 drama film starring Kay Francis as a woman sent to prison for twenty years for a murder she did not commit...
(1933) - Lady KillerLady Killer (1933 film)Lady Killer is a 1933 film starring James Cagney, Mae Clarke, and Margaret Lindsay, based on the story "The Finger Man" by Rosalind Keating Shaffer.-Cast:*James Cagney as Dan Quigley*Mae Clarke as Myra Gale*Margaret Lindsay as Lois Underwood...
(1933) - Fog Over FriscoFog Over FriscoFog Over Frisco is a 1934 American drama film directed by William Dieterle. The screenplay by Robert N. Lee and Eugene Solow was based on the short story The Five Fragments by George Dyer.-Plot:...
(1934) - The Merry Wives of Reno (1934)
- Gentlemen Are BornGentlemen Are BornGentlemen Are Born is a 1934 drama film directed by Alfred E. Green and starring Franchot Tone.The film's pre-release title was Just Out of College. A news item in Daily Variety notes that Warner Bros. was sued for $250,000 by Ronald Wagoner and James F...
(1934) - The Dragon Murder Case (1934)
- BordertownBordertown (1935 film)Bordertown is a 1935 American drama film directed by Archie Mayo. The screenplay by Laird Doyle and Wallace Smith is based on Robert Lord's adaptation of the 1934 novel Border Town by Carroll Graham....
(1935) - Devil Dogs of the Air (1935)
- The Florentine Dagger (1935)
- The Case of the Curious BrideThe Case of the Curious BrideThe Case of the Curious Bride is a 1935 mystery film, the second in a series starring Warren William as Perry Mason. The story is based on the novel of the same name by Erle Stanley Gardner.-Plot:...
(1935) - G MenG MenG Men is a 1935 Warner Bros. crime film starring James Cagney and Ann Dvorak. It also marked Lloyd Nolan's film debut. According to Variety Magazine, it was one of the top-grossing films of 1935....
(1935) - Frisco KidFrisco KidFrisco Kid is a 1935 film starring James Cagney and directed by Lloyd Bacon.-Cast:*James Cagney as Bat Morgan*Margaret Lindsay as Jean Barrat*Ricardo Cortez as Paul Morra*Lili Damita as Belle*Donald Woods as Charles Ford...
(1935) - DangerousDangerous (film)Dangerous is a 1935 American drama film directed by Alfred E. Green and starring Bette Davis in her first Oscar-winning role. The screenplay by Laird Doyle is based on his story Hard Luck Dame.-Plot synopsis:...
(1935) - Public Enemy's Wife (1936)
- Green Light (1937)
- SlimSlim (film)Slim is a 1937 movie starring Henry Fonda. The movie is sometimes called Slim the Lineman.It is a film adaptation of the 1934 novel Slim, written by William Wister Haines, which concerns linemen in the electric power industry...
(1937) - Gold is Where You Find ItGold Is Where You Find It"Gold is Where You Find It" is a Technicolor feature film, released on February 12, 1938 by Warner Brothers. It has a running time of 91 minutes.-Cast & Credits:* Director: Michael Curtiz* Producers: Jack L. Warner, Hal B...
(1938)
- Jezebel (1938)
- When Were You BornWhen Were You BornWhen Were You Born is a 1938 murder mystery film starring Anna May Wong as an astrologer who helps the police. Each of the twelve principal characters was born under a different astrological sign.-Plot:...
(1938) - Garden of the Moon (1938)
- Broadway Musketeers (1938)
- On TrialOn TrialOn Trial is an early talking drama film produced and distributed by Warner Brothers and directed by Archie Mayo. The picture stars Pauline Frederick, Lois Wilson, Bert Lytell, Holmes Herbert and Jason Robards. Obviously a film where many a silent player was crossing over to sound for the first...
(1939) - Hell's KitchenHell's Kitchen (1939 film)Hell's Kitchen is a 1939 Warner Bros. film starring Ronald Reagan and The Dead End Kids.-Plot:Buck Caesar is a paroled convict who makes a contribution to a reform school on the advice of his nephew, Jim Donahue , a lawyer...
(1939) - British IntelligenceBritish Intelligence (film)British Intelligence is a 1940 spy film set in World War I. It was directed by Terry O. Morse and starred Boris Karloff and Margaret Lindsay. Released in the USA in January 1940, the Warner Bros. B picture was based on a 1918 play Three Faces East written by Anthony Paul Kelly that was produced on...
(1940) - The House of the Seven GablesThe House of the Seven Gables (film)The House of the Seven Gables is a 1940 drama film based on the novel of the same name by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It stars George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay, and Vincent Price.-Cast:*George Sanders as Jaffrey Pyncheon*Margaret Lindsay as Hepzibah Pyncheon...
(1940) - Ellery Queen, Master Detective (1940)
- Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery (1941)
- Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime (1941)
- Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring (1941)
- A Close Call for Ellery Queen (1942)
- The SpoilersThe Spoilers (1942 film)The Spoilers is a 1942 film directed by Ray Enright. The movie is set in Nome, Alaska during the Nome Gold Rush, with Marlene Dietrich as Cherry Malotte, Randolph Scott as Alexander McNamara, and John Wayne as Roy Glennister, and culminates in a spectacular saloon fistfight between McNamara and...
(1942) - Enemy Agents Meet Ellery Queen (1942)
- A Desperate Chance for Ellery Queen (1942)
- Crime DoctorCrime Doctor (film)Crime Doctor is a crime film starring Warner Baxter as a man with amnesia determined to remember his past. The film, released by Columbia Pictures, was based on the Crime Doctor radio program and was followed by nine sequels:...
(1943) - The Adventures of Rusty (1943)
- Scarlet StreetScarlet StreetScarlet Street is a 1945 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang and based on the French novel La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardière, that previously had been dramatized on stage by André Mouëzy-Éon, and cinematically as La Chienne by director Jean Renoir.The principal actors Edward G...
(1945) - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1947)
- Cass TimberlaneCass TimberlaneCass Timberlane is a novel written by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1945. It is Sinclair Lewis' nineteenth novel and one of his last.It was made into a romantic drama film starring Spencer Tracy and Lana Turner, directed by George Sidney, and released in 1947.Timberlane is a minor character in...
(1947) - The Vigilantes Return (1947)
- B.F.'s DaughterB.F.'s DaughterB.F.'s Daughter is a 1948 drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin. It is adapted from John P. Marquand's controversial 1946 novel of the same name, but the movie script soft-pedals the controversial elements and is a fairly conventional love...
(1948) - Please Don't Eat the DaisiesPlease Don't Eat the Daisies (film)Please Don't Eat the Daisies is a comedy film starring Doris Day and David Niven, made by Euterpe Inc., and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
(1960) - Tammy and the Doctor (1963)
Further reading
- Bellamy, RalphRalph BellamyRalph Bellamy was an American actor whose career spanned sixty-two years.-Early life:He was born Ralph Rexford Bellamy in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Lilla Louise , a native of Canada, and Charles Rexford Bellamy. He ran away from home when he was fifteen and managed to get into a road show...
. (1979). When the Smoke Hits the Fan. Garden City, NY: Doubleday ISBN 0-385-14860-7. - Bookbinder, Robert. (1985). Classics of the Gangster Film. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-1053-6.
- Briggs, Colin. (2004). Jon Hall: The King of Technicolor in Classic Images, January, 2004 issue. Muscatine, Iowa: Classic Images.
- Brunas, Michael, Brunas, John and Weaver, Tom. (1990). Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931 - 1946. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 0-89950-369-1.
- Dickens, Homer. (1989). The Complete Films of James Cagney. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-1152-4.
- Dooley, Roger. (1984). From Scarface to Scarlett: American Films in the 1930s. New York: Harcourt. ISBN 0-15-633998-6
- Hardy, PhilPhil Hardy (journalist)Phil Hardy is an English film and music industry journalist. He was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1945 and studied at the University of Sussex, 1964-1969, during which time he was a visiting student at the Berkeley campus of the University of California . At Sussex he started The Brighton Film...
(editor). (2000). The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster FilmThe Aurum Film EncyclopediaThe Aurum Film Encyclopedia is a multi-volume reference work on cinema, published in the UK by Aurum Press and edited by Phil Hardy. The first volume, devoted to western films, appeared in 1983, with eight subsequent volumes announced at that time as "forthcoming". However, as of 2007, only...
. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-881-2. - Katz, EphraimEphraim KatzEphraim Katz was a writer, journalist, and filmmaker who devoted his life to gathering the information in his book, The Film Encyclopedia, first published in 1979....
. (2001). The Film Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. Revised by Klein, Fred and Nolen, Ronald Dean. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-273755-4. - Lawrence, Jerome. (1974). Actor: The Life and Times of Paul Muni. New York, New York: Samuel French, Inc. ISBN 0-573-69034-0.
- Maltin, LeonardLeonard MaltinLeonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
. (1994). Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia. New York, New York: Dutton/Penguin. ISBN 0-525-93635-1. - McCarty, Clifford. (1990). The Complete Films of Humphrey Bogart. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-0955-4.
- McCarty, John. (2004). Bullets Over Hollywood: The American Gangster Film from the Silents to The Sopranos. Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81301-7.
- Parish, James Robert, editor. (1971). The Great Movie Series. South Brunswick and New York: A. S. Barnes. ISBN 0-498-07847-7.
- Parish, James Robert and Leonard, William T. (1976). Hollywood Players: The Thirties. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House Publishers. ISBN 0-87000-365-8.
- Ringgold, Gene. (1990). The Complete Films of Bette Davis. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-1177-X
- Sennett, Ted. (1971). Warner Brothers Presents. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House Publishers. ISBN 0-87000-136-1.
- Svehla, Gary J. and Susan, editors. (1998). Vincent Price [Midnight Marquee Actors Series]. Baltimore, MD: Midnight Marquee Press. ISBN 1-887664-21-1.
- Thomas, Tony. (1990). The Complete Films of Errol Flynn. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-0237-1.
- Tuska, Jon (1978). The Detective in Hollywood. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-12093-1.
- Variety Obituaries, Volume 9: 1980 - 1983. New York and London: Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8240-0843-X,
- Williams, Lucy Chase. (1998). The Complete Films of Vincent Price. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press ISBN 0-8065-1600-3.
External links
- Margaret Lindsay bio at Ellery QueenEllery QueenEllery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
fansite - TVNow's monthly guide to television airings of Margaret Lindsay's films