Constance Worth
Birth : 1912-08-19, Sydney, Australia
Death : 1963-10-18
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Constance Worth (also known as Jocelyn Howarth) (19 August 1911 – 18 October 1963) was an Australian actress who became a Hollywood star in the late 1930s. As Jocelyn Howarth, she experienced success in Ken Hall's films The Squatter's Daughter (1933) and The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934). Cinesound put her under an 18-month contract and paid for her to tour Australia as their rising star.
Ken Hall claimed Howarth's first screen test showed "light and shade, good diction, no accent and (that) she undoubtedly could act with no sign of the self-consciousness which almost always characterised the amateur." In late 1933, Smith's Weekly raved enthusiastically about the young actress; "Young Joy Howarth who leapt into publicity when she became the Squatter's Daughter a few months ago, is just the big hit nowadays...."
In April 1936, she sailed for the United States and Hollywood. After six months of unsuccessful effort, including a near-fatal incident with a gas stove in her flat, she signed a contract with RKO Pictures, taking the leading female roles as Constance Worth, in China Passage and Windjammer. The change of name was related to her first role with established Hollywood actor Vinton Hayworth. After Windjammer, RKO offered her no more films. Her next role was in Willis Kent's 1938 exploitation quickie, The Wages of Sin, playing a young woman lured into prostitution. For the next 12 years, she appeared in a mix of leading, supporting, and uncredited roles in B films. In mid-1939, she returned to act on stage in Australia, but went back to the U.S. before the end of the year. In 1941, she appeared in an uncredited minor role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion, and in the same year, a leading role in the gangster B film Borrowed Hero. Her last film was a minor role in the 1949 Johnny Mack Brown Western Western Renegades. Throughout her career and as late as 1961, publicity in Australia repeatedly suggested she was on the verge of signing a major studio contract again. This did not happen.
Fake Ann Gordon
Brown's principal antagonist this time is the town boss, an outlaw who has killed the community's leading citizen. The dead man's grown children want to investigate the killing, but the outlaw puts a stop to this by hiring a dance-hall dame to pose as the kids' long-lost mother. Johnny isn't fooled by this subterfuge nor is his sidekick.
Wife (uncredited)
Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.
Nan Raymond
A young Navy sailor has one night to find out why a woman was killed and he ended up with a bag of money after a drinking blackout.
Irene
A naive young girl, looking to escape from a bad family situation, falls in love with a man who turns out to be a cad, and leads her down the road to ruin.
Flo
In this crime drama, a young woman leaves her unhappy life at home to become a sophisticated night club singer. Her first job is nearly fatal when she entangles herself with the mobsters who own the joint and learns too much about their operation. Her boss decides to kill her and make it look like suicide. An intrepid reporter disbelieves the report and exposes the truth to the public.
Blonde
The life of American public enemy number one who was shot by the police in 1934.
Ethel Hollingsworth
A madcap comedy about a kid sister who tries to steal her older sister's boyfriend. Her plan involves joining forces with a burglar to rob the unfortunate suitor's home.
Connie Pearson
This Columbia western starring Charles Starrett finds Steve Randall (Charles Starrett) forming a radio show with Jimmy Wakely (Jimmy Wakely) and his Saddle Pals, and are in town for a rodeo. Reporter Connie Pearson (Constance Worth) persuades them to visit Marty Jones (Elvin Fields), a fatherless boy, who has been sent to a boy's home after stealing Steve's wallet, ran by Tom Goodwin (Forrest Taylor.) Marty tells Steve that the home is a phony and is a front for cattle rustlers. Steve passes the information on to Connie, who doesn't believe him, so he and Jimmy wire the ranch for sound. They are caught and Goodwin turns them over to Sheriff Barnes (Edmund Cobb), and then plans to skip the country
Lola
It's World War 2 and saboteurs are out to destroy the ranchers food crop. Steve Travis and sidekick Cannonball have been called in to investigate. Avoiding the attempts on his life by the gang, Steve uses a pair of eyeglasses to discover their leader, a supposedly deaf mute shoe repairman.
Woman in Gaming House (uncredited)
An English lady falls in love with a French pirate after he kidnaps her from her ancestral home on the coast of Cornwall and sweeps her off her feet into a world of adventure.
Receptionist (uncredited)
A nightclub dancer makes it big in modeling, leaving her dancer boyfriend behind.
Lita
A young man in Alaska finds himself accused of murder, and must fight to clear his name.
Betty Watson
The Crime Doctor gets involved in the case of the poisoning of a wealthy industrialist.
Reporter
Mystery writer Barry Craig (Allyn Joslyn) and his wife Jane (Evelyn Keyes), prefer solving crimes rather than writing about them. They get a chance when killings plague the fashion photography studio of Ralph McCormick (Edmund Lowe). After his secretary, Julie Taylor(Anita Louise) reports an attempt to murder her there, Erika McCormick's (Ann Savage) Aunt Isabel Fleming (Mary Forbes) is stabbed and the evidence points to Madge Lawrence (Bess Flowers) an older model and an apparent suicide. Police Inspector Joseph Clinton (Frank Craven) declares the case closed...but then Erika is murdered.
Betty, Ordway's Nurse-Receptionist
Robert is found beside the highway with a head injury and amnesia. His amnesia motivates him to become a Physician and the country's leading criminal psychologist.
June Leslie
Fay Weston (Jinx Falkenburg), a radio singer of no consequence, pretends to be the daughter of a recently deceased Broadway stage star in order to hoodwink Broadway play producer in starring her in a planned-show that is a tribute to her supposed mother.
Vivian Marsh
Japanese spies attempt to subvert America's war effort; G-Men attempt to thwart their plot.
Elsie
A young woman's husband has been imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. In order to be near him to try to help him get his sentence overturned, she moves into a boardinghouse near the prison whose residents are the wives of inmates.
Linda Pavlo
A Nazi spy ring is after a chemical formula that increases the power of ordinary gasoline for U.S. Army aviation use. Two U.S. chemical companies are developing the formula, with each working on half for security purposes. The spies get half the formula and know that either of two chemists, Robert Norton or Tom Fielding, knows the rest. They capture Fielding, through a ruse by gang member Linda Pavlo, and threaten the life of his sister Nancy and his mother if he does not give them the formula. To protect his friend Fielding, who does know the formula and is engaged to Nancy, Tom pretends to know the secret and boards the Dawn Express plane with the spy leader and his gang.
Mona Brooks
A struggling lawyer is named as special prosecutor in a racketeering case.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick (uncredited)
Wealthy, sheltered Lina McLaidlaw is swept off her feet by charming ne'er-do-well Johnnie Aysgarth. Though warned that Johnnie is little more than a fortune hunter, Lina marries him anyway and remains loyal to her irresponsible husband as he plows his way from one disreputable business scheme to another. Gradually Lina comes to the conclusion that Johnnie intends to kill her in order to collect her inheritance.
Alma Barton
A young soldier uncovers a ring of spies when he investigates his brother's mysterious murder.
Marilyn Howard
When a murder occurs on an ocean liner docked in New York, the trail leads to Coney Island and a spy ring.
Sylvia Marbe
Small-time businessman Charles Engle is threatened with exposure for embezzling $3,000 for his free-spending wife. Deciding on suicide, he scribbles a note, stuffs it in his pocket and goes for one last night on the town. He is pulled into a poker game by conman Bill O'Brien and singer Nina Barone, but when they discover the dropped note, they resolve to turn the tables, get Engle his $3,000 and save his life.
Ann Stokes
A doctor and nurse solve an operating-room murder.
Marjorie Benton
A hard-working woman trying to support her family and working at a menial, low-paying job falls for a low-life and before she knows it, he has her working as a prostitute in a bordello.
Betty Selby
The fourth and last of the George A. Hirliman-produced films starring George O'Brien (preceded by "Daniel Boone", "Park Avenue Logger" and "Hollywood Cowboy") that were distributed by RKO Radio. Hirliman sold O'Brien's contract to RKO, which then produced 18 series westerns starring O'Brien that ended when O'Brien went into the Navy at the outbreak of WW II. Long-time (past and future) O'Brien director David Howard served as Hirliman's Associate Producer on this film. "Windjammer" finds O'Brien as a subpoena server ordered to serve a subpoena on Brandon Evans (The Commondore) for a senate inquiry or lose his job. Posing as a playboy, he boards the Commodore's yacht during a yacht race, and the yacht is wrecked by a gun-running windjammer commanded by Captain Morgan (William Hall.) All hands are picked up by the windjammer, including the Commodore's daughter (played by Constance Worth) and put to work as galley slaves.
Jane Dunn
Americans Tommy Baldwin and Joe Dugan are hired to transport a fabulous diamond from Shanghai to San Francisco. They will be paid handsomely on success or killed on failure. The diamond is stolen as they take possession of it.
Joan Enderby
A story of rival sheep stations and of the strong-willed squatter’s daughter who wants to unite them.
Chloe
Rich cousins marry after they are both bankrupted.
A farmer frames a petty officer for theft and confesses after falling over a cliff.
Dolores Blockett
Dolores gets a marriage proposal from the promising young doctor Lucas, but on the day of their marriage, she leaves him in the lurch and takes off with the South American dancer and adventurer Hugo Amadis. But Hugo treats her badly. Dolores leaves Hugo and begins a career as a dancer to make ends meet for her and her son. One day, the son gets sick, and the doctor who helps the child through the crisis is Doctor Lucas. Lucas and Delores decide to start over.
