Madge Evans

Madge Evans
File:Madge Evans - still.jpg c. 1935
Born	Margherita Evans (1909-07-01)July 1, 1909 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	Oakland, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1914-1971
Spouse(s)	Sidney Kingsley (1939-1981) (her death)

Madge Evans (July 1, 1909 – April 26, 1981) was an American stage and film actress. She began her career as a child performer and model.

Biography

Child model and stage actress

Born in Manhattan as Margherita Evans, Madge Evans was featured in print ads as the 'Fairy Soap 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, and Henry Hull. When she was four years old, Evans was featured in a series of child plays produced by William A. Brady. 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, then 16, for an Anheuser-Busch 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, Constance Collier and Laura Hope Crews. At 17, she returned to the stage and appeared as the ingenue (stock character) 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 and Europe when she was 15.

Film career

As a child film actress, Evans had quite a prolific career appearing in dozens of films, including with Marguerite Clark in The Seven Sisters (1915), a film with a large female ensemble that had been played on stage with Clark's rival Mary Pickford and Laurette Taylor in the cast. She was featured with Robert Warwick in Alias Jimmy Valentine (1915), a still extant film that has seen release on home video/DVD. At 14, she was the star of J. Stuart Blackton's rural melodrama On the Banks of the Wabash (1923). She co-starred with Richard Barthelmess in Classmates (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 fiancé of the leading man. She played the love interest to both Al Jolson and Henry Morgan in the 1933 film Hallelujah, I'm a Bum.

Working for MGM in the 1930s, she appeared in Dinner at Eight (1933), Broadway to Hollywood (1933), Hell Below (1933), and David Copperfield (1935). In 1933, she starred with James Cagney in a melodrama 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 (1933), Grand Canary (1934), What Every Woman Knows (1934), and Pennies From Heaven (1936).

In 1960, for Evans' contribution to the motion picture industry, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1752 Vine Street.

Marriage

In York Village, Maine, on July 25, 1939, she married playwright Sidney Kingsley, best known for his plays Dead End and Detective Story which were later turned into popular films. The couple owned a 250-acre (1,000,000 m²) estate in Oakland, New Jersey. 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. Evans performed on the Philco Television Playhouse (1949–1950), Studio One (1954), Matinee Theater (1955), and The Alcoa Hour (1956). She refused repeated offers to return to Hollywood. She retired in 1971.

Madge Evans died at her home in Oakland, New Jersey 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	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		Uncredited
	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	Lisbeth
1924	Classmates	Sylvia
1930	Envy	Helen	Short film
1931	Son of India	Janice Darsey	First film for MGM
	Sporting Blood	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	Polaire
	Are You Listening?	Laura O'Neil
	Huddle	Rosalie Stone
	Fast Life	Shirley
1933	Hallelujah, I'm a Bum	June Marcher
	Hell Below	Joan Standish
	Made on Broadway	Claire Bidwell
	The Nuisance	Dorothy Mason
	The Mayor of Hell	Dorothy Griffith
	Dinner at Eight	Paula Jordan
	Broadway to Hollywood	Anne Ainsley
	Beauty for Sale	Letty Lawson
	Day of Reckoning	Dorothy Day
1934	Fugitive Lovers	Letty Morris
	The Show-Off	Amy Fisher Piper
	Stand Up and Cheer!	Mary Adams
	Grand Canary	Lady Mary Fielding
	Paris Interlude	Julia 'Julie' Bell
	Death on the Diamond	Frances Clark
	What Every Woman Knows	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	Ruth McAllan
1936	Exclusive Story	Ann Devlin
	Moonlight Murder	Antonia 'Toni' Adams
	Piccadilly Jim	Ann Chester
	Pennies from Heaven	Susan Sprague
1937	Espionage	Patricia Booth
	The Thirteenth Chair	Nell O'Neill
1938	Sinners in Paradise	Anne Wesson
	Army Girl	Julie Armstrong

Articles

• Los Angeles Times, 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 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, and Jackie Coogan head Sextet Surviving, Sunday Morning, July 19, 1931, Section 3, Page 11.
• Zanesville, Ohio Signal, Madge Evans Has Role With James Cagney, July 16, 1933, Page 12.

External links

• Madge Evans at the Internet Movie Database
• Madge Evans at the Internet Broadway Database
• Pictures at SilentLadies.com
• Photos at Virtual-History.com
• Madge Evans at Find a Grave