Marguerite Churchill
Birth : 1910-12-26, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Death : 2000-01-09
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marguerite Churchill (December 26, 1910 – January 9, 2000) was an American film actress appearing in more than 25 films with a career spanning from 1929 to 1952. She is best known today as John Wayne's first leading lady, in The Big Trail (1930).
She was the daughter of a producer who owned a chain of theaters, but he died when she was ten years old. She was educated in New York City at the Professional Children's School and the Theatre Guild Dramatic School. She appeared on stage and was applauded on Broadway as a leading lady when just sixteen years old. An official of the Fox Company saw her acting and gave her a contract which shortly afterwards led her to debut on screen in The Diplomats.
Churchill played leading lady to John Wayne in Howard Hawk's The Big Trail (1930), an early widescreen epic and Wayne's first leading role. She appeared with Wayne the following year in Girls Demand Excitement (1931), with Spencer Tracy and George Raft in Quick Millions (1931), with Will Rogers in Ambassador Bill (1931), with Warner Oland in Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), with George O'Brien in Riders of the Purple Sage (1931), with Charles Farrell in Girl Without a Room (1933), with Ralph Bellamy in The Final Hour (1936), with Boris Karloff in The Walking Dead (1936), and with Edward Van Sloan in Dracula's Daughter (1936).
She died on January 9, 2000, aged 89, from natural causes in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. She was survived by her daughter, Orin.
Barbara Madison
Police sergeants Johnson and McManus take on Los Angeles confidence tricksters. Con man Tony Wells, lining up rich widow Jessica Royce as his latest mark, sets up a false paranormal society with other charlatans to convince the credulous Jessica that her late son is speaking to her through their sham seances. When the plan leads to murder, Johnson and McManus must bring the group down before they kill again.
Nancy Foster
Two newly-appointed postal inspectors, Frank Marshall and 'Slim" Hewitt, set out to track down the sender of a time-bomb to a U. S. Senator and, during their investigation, run across a hooded organization that is terrorizing an American city. They also meet Don Foster, who is loud in his condemnation of the terrorists, and his sister, Nancy, who fears for her brother's life.
Lois Allen
A radio commentator named Perry Travis fancies himself a brilliant amateur detective. The cops wish he’d stick to his microphone and let them do the detecting. This proves impossible when a famed scientist is murdered in Perry’s studio, right in the middle of the interview. All evidence points to Perry, and he sets out to clear his name before the Shadow-like villain roaming the hallways of the radio station gets away with murder.
Flo Russell
A down-and-out lawyer gets back on his feet with help from a singer who later retains him to defend her on a murder charge.
Sally Keating
A wealthy family is blackmailed. Murder results. And a nurse at the scene of the crime is determined to figure out who-done-it.
Janet
A countess from Transylvania seeks a psychiatrist’s help to cure her vampiric cravings.
Nancy
Down-on-his-luck John Ellman is framed for a judge's murder. After he's convicted and sentenced to death, witnesses come forth and prove his innocence. But it was too late for a stay to be granted and Ellman is executed. A doctor uses an experimental procedure to restore him to life, though the full outcome is other than expected.
Jane Carpenter
A bored small-town teacher gets mixed up with an escaped bank robber.
Pat Corey
A race car driver, injured during an accident, opens up a repair shop only to become the target of crooked government agents.
Sue Cole
Struggling architect David Cole is encouraged by his boss, Phil Graham, to fraternize with high society as a means of drumming up business. This inadvertently leads to him having an affair with a rich older woman. When his wife Sue discovers the infidelity, she divorces him and takes away their two children. It turns out this was Phil's intent all along - so he could marry Sue. With David now living in Europe, the two children grow up spoiled and self-centered under Phil and Sue's neglectful care. When one of them is shot while roughhousing, David realizes he must own up to his responsibilities as a father...but it may be too late to make a difference in his children's lives...
Kay Loring
In this comedy, a Tennessee art school student wins a scholarship to paint in Paris. He is thrilled until he arrives and discovers that his style is hopelessly passe and is considered trashy. The enterprising artist immediately changes style and begins painting highly-abstract moderns.
Marya Ossipoff
A framework story serves as context for a retelling of the Exodus story and, most importantly, a recycling of footage from the silent version of The Ten Commandments.
Queen Vanya
An American ambassador arrives in a small country that is being convulsed by political intrigue and civil unrest. He befriends the young boy who is to be the country's king, to ensure that the boy is prepared to take on the role and also to see that he lives long enough to assume the crown.
Jane Withersteen
Lassiter's sister was killed and her young daughter taken and raised by outlaws. Years later Lassiter arrives at the Withersteen ranch looking for the now grown daughter. He immediately gets caught up in the ranch's struggle against rustlers. Trailing a rustled herd of horses leads him to the rustler's hideout and the missing daughter.
Dorothy Stone
A truck driver "too lazy to work and too nervous to steal" gets mixed up in racketeering. Naturally his underhanded business practices make him a pillar of the community.
Pamela Potter
Charlie steps in to solve the murder of a wealthy American found dead in a London hotel. Settings include London, Nice, San Remo, Honolulu and Hong Kong. Fast-paced with lots of wisecracking. The first film to star Warner Oland as Charlie Chan.
Miriam
Peter Brooks is a hard-working, hard-up college student whose dislike of women attending college weakens under the amorous advances of spoiled socialite coed Joan Madison.
Ruth Cameron
Young scout Breck Coleman leads a wagon train along the dangerous trail to Oregon as he tries to get the affection of the beautiful pioneer Ruth Cameron and plans his revenge on the harsh scoundrels who murdered a friend of his in the past.
Helen Rankin
When love came the way of this gentleman crook he turned to the right---only to be caught in the swirling eddy of his criminal past! (original ad)
Rosa Beretti
In order to use the publicity to get re-elected, a judge sentences a notorious gangster to fight in the war.
Louise Haller
This comedy story of Joe Haller unwittingly running a sweatshop and Mama Haller keeping the suitors away from her daughters by discussing marriage.
Hélène Berthelot
A 1929 American pre-Code drama film with fantasy elements that was released by Fox Film Corporation in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system on December 1, 1929.
Opal Peters
Oklahoma mechanic Pike Peters finds himself part owner of an oil field. His wife Idy, hitherto content, decides the family must go to Paris to get "culture" and meet "the right kind of people." Pike and his grown son and daughter soon have flirtatious French admirers; Idy rents a chateau from an impoverished aristocrat; while Pike responds to each new development with homespun wit. In the inevitable clash, will pretentiousness and sophistication or common sense triumph?
Mary Douglas
A man condemned to execution tries to convince two women that he is not their son and brother, and that they must get on with their lives.
