Esther Dale

Esther Dale
File:Esther Dale signed.jpg Signed Publicity Photo
Born	(1885-11-10)November 10, 1885 Beaufort, South Carolina, U.S.
Died	Queen of Angels Hospital, Hollywood, California, U.S.
Cause of death	complications from surgery
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1934-1960 (film and television roles, though in earlier years appeared on stage including Broadway)
Spouse(s)	Arthur Beckhard (m.? - March 1961; his death)

Esther Dale (November 10, 1885 – July 23, 1961) was an American actress, best known perhaps for her role as Aunt Genevieve in the 1935 Shirley Temple vehicle, Curly Top.

Biography

She attended Leland and Gray Seminary in Townsend, Vermont. In Berlin, Germany, she studied music and enjoyed a successful career as a singer of lieder on the concert stage.

File:Esther Dale.jpg

Esther Dale in 1938

In America, she transferred to the acting stage and cultivated a career as an actress in summer stock. She starred in Carrie Nation on Broadway in 1933.

Her first film was Crime Without Passion (1934) in an uncredited role. She was a familiar face in films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, frequently playing stern, authoritarian characters such as prison matrons and head nurses, although she was equally adept at playing grande dames and ladies of the aristocracy.

She played many roles in television over the years. In the 1958-1959 season of The Donna Reed Show, Dale played a job-seeking housekeeper who is frightened from the Stone home by Jeff Stone's pet mouse, and she appeared in the 1957 Maverick episode "According to Hoyle" opposite James Garner.

Dale died in the summer of 1961 following surgery in Queen of Angels Hospital in Hollywood. She had been married to writer and director Arthur J. Beckhard, who predeceased her by four months.

Partial filmography

• Crime Without Passion (1934) (uncredited)
• The Wedding Night (1935)
• Private Worlds (1935)
• Curly Top (1935)
• I Live My Life (1935)
• Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935)
• In Old Kentucky (1935)
• The Great Impersonation (1935)
• Timothy's Quest (1936)
• The Farmer in the Dell (1936)
• The Case Against Mrs. Ames (1936)
• Fury (1936)
• Hollywood Boulevard (1936)
• Outcast (1937)
• Easy Living (1937)
• Dead End (1937)
• The Awful Truth (1937)
• Condemned Women (1938)
• Broadway Serenade (1939)
• Tell No Tales (1939)
• The Women (1939) (uncredited)
• Blackmail (1939)
• Swanee River (1939)
• Laddie (1940)
• Convicted Woman (1940)
• Women Without Names (1940)
• And One Was Beautiful (1940)
• Forty Little Mothers (1940) (uncredited)
• Opened by Mistake (1940)
• The Mortal Storm (1940)
• Cross-Country Romance (1940) (uncredited)
• Untamed (1940)
• Blondie Has Servant Trouble (1940)
• Arise, My Love (1940)
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
• Back Street (1941)
• Aloma of the South Seas (1941)
• All-American Co-Ed (1941)
• Dangerously They Live (1941)
• Wrecking Crew (1942)
• The Amazing Mrs. Holliday (1943)
• The North Star (1943)
• Bedside Manner (1945)
• My Reputation (1946)
• A Stolen Life (1946)
• Margie (1946)
• The Egg and I (1947)
• A Song Is Born (1948)
• Ma and Pa Kettle (1949)
• Holiday Affair (1949)
• No Man of Her Own (1950)
• Too Young to Kiss (1951)
• Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952)
• Monkey Business (1952)
• Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955)
• The Oklahoman (1957)

External links

• Esther Dale at the Internet Movie Database
• Esther Dale at the Internet Broadway Database
• Esther Dale at Find a Grave