Monetta Eloyse Darnell, better known as Linda Darnell
(born October 16, 1923; died April 10, 1965), was a
American film actress.
Born in Dallas, Texas and one of five
children, Darnell was a model by the age of 11 and
was acting in theater by the age of 13. She was chosen
by a talent scout to go to Hollywood but was sent
home to Dallas when they discovered she had lied about
her age.
By 1939 she had returned to Hollywood
and immediately began to secure good roles, appearing
in such films as Blood and Sand, Hangover Square and
My Darling Clementine. She was cast uncredited as
the Virgin Mary in The Song of Bernadette in 1943,
in a controversial move by director Darryl F. Zanuck.
In 1947 she won the starring role in the highly anticipated
Forever Amber. Publicity at the time suggested this
would be the next Gone with the Wind, and the search
for Amber was deliberately modelled on the extensive
process that led to the casting of Scarlett O'Hara,
but the film did not live up to its hype.
Darnell played two roles that earned
her respect as an actress: as Daphne De Carter in
the Preston Sturges comedy Unfaithfully Yours, opposite
Rex Harrison, and as one of the three wives in A Letter
to Three Wives. Darnell's hard-edged performance in
the latter won her the best reviews of her career.
She was widely tipped to win an Academy Award nomination
for this part, but, when this did not happen, her
career began to diminish and her film appearances
were sporadic thereafter.
Darnell had three failed marriages,
to cameraman J. Peverell Marley (1943-1952), brewery
heir Philip Leibmann (1954-55), and pilot Merle Roy
Robertson (1957-1963). Apparently unable to conceive,
Darnell and Leibmann adopted a daughter, Charlotte
"Lola" Marley, who now owns The Smoking
Lamp tobacco shop in Charleston, South Carolina. To
the detriment of her family life and career, for many
years Darnell drank alcohol and ate to excess.
Darnell died on April 10, 1965, from
the burns she received in a house fire in Glenview,
Illinois, while staying with friends. Her 1940 film
Star Dust was playing on television the night of the
fire and Darnell fell asleep with a lit cigarette
while watching it. She reportedly awoke and tried
to save her friend's child in the house -- the young
girl had already escaped -- and instead was burned
over 80 percent of her body. She died the next day.
Her ashes are interred at the Union Hill Cemetery,
Chester County, Pennsylvania, in the family plot of
her daughter's husband.
She has a star in Hollywood on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1631 Vine St.
Filmography
Hotel for Women (1939)
Day-Time Wife (1939)
Star Dust (1940)
Brigham Young - Frontiersman (1940)
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
Chad Hanna (1940)
Meet the Stars: Hollywood Meets the Navy (1941) (short
subject)
Blood and Sand (1941)
Rise and Shine (1941)
The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942)
City Without Men (1943)
Show Business at War (1943) (short subject)
The Song of Bernadette (1943)
Buffalo Bill (1944)
It Happened Tomorrow (1944)
Summer Storm (1944)
Sweet and Low-Down (1944)
Hangover Square (1945)
The All-Star Bond Rally (1945) (short subject)
The Great John L. (1945)
Fallen Angel (1945)
Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
Centennial Summer (1946)
My Darling Clementine (1946)
Forever Amber (1947)
The Walls of Jericho (1948)
Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Slattery's Hurricane (1949)
Everybody Does It (1949)
No Way Out (1950)
Two Flags West (1950)
The 13th Letter (1951)
The Guy Who Came Back (1951)
The Lady Pays Off (1951)
Island of Desire (1952)
Night Without Sleep (1952)
Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952)
Angels of Darkness (1953)
Second Chance (1953)
This Is My Love (1954)
The Last Five Minutes (1954)
Dakota Incident (1956)
Homeward Borne (1957)
Zero Hour! (1957)
The Castilian (1963)
Black Spurs (1965)
source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
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