Darla from The Little Rascals?
Mike Warren
Little Rascals had just died??? Who was it?? Any info posted here
would be greatly appreciated? Thanks - Mike
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gjw
>
> Someone told me that they had heard on the radio where one of the
> Little Rascals had just died??? Who was it?? Any info posted here
> would be greatly appreciated? Thanks - Mike
Darla Hood died long ago, and is buried at Hollywood Memorial Park (in
Hollywood, CA), the same cemetery where Alfalfa is buried.
gjw
> Neither. It was Molly O'Day. I have yet to learn which of the Little
> Rascals films she was in, which years she was in the Gang, or anything
> else. Until she died, I had never heard of her, and I thought I knew
> all of the Rascals.
From the IMdb:
Molly O'Day
Real name
Suzanne Noonan O'Day
Date of birth (location)
1911,
Bayonne, New Jersey, USA
Date of death (details)
15 October 1998,
Arroyo Grande, California, USA. (natural
causes)
Actress filmography
(1930s) (1920s)
1.Bars of Hate (1936)
2.Chloe (1935)
3.Law of the .45s (1935) .... Joan Hayden
4.Lawless Border (1935)
5.Skull and Crown (1935) .... Ann Norton
6.Hired Wife (1934) .... Pat Sullivan
7.Life of Vergie Winters, The (1934) .... Sadie
8.Get That Venus (1933) .... Belle
... aka Unwanted Venus, The (1933) (UK:
working title)
9.Gigolettes of Paris (1933)
10.Sea Devils (1931)
11.Sob Sister (1931) .... Daisy
12.Sisters (1930) .... Molly Shannon
13.Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, The (1928)
.... Melissa
Turner
... aka Kentucky Courage (1928)
14.Lovelorn, The (1927) .... Ann Hastings
15.Patent Leather Kid, The (1927) .... Curley
Boyle, the Golden
Dancer
16.Hard-Boiled Haggerty (1927) .... Germaine
Benoit
17.Shepherd of the Hills, The (1927) .... Sammy
Lane
Trivia
Ms. O'Day was a freshman in high school when
Hal Roach
slected her to be in RKO's "Our Gang"
comedies. In order to
win the tough girl heroine role in "The
Patent Leather Kid,"
Ms O'Day had to compete with 2,000 contenders
in an audition.
She was the sister of Sally O'Neil. Her
mother was
Metropolitan Opera singer, Hannah Kelly. Her
father was a
judge in Bayonne, N.J.
akasam1
'original' Darla. His last name was Lovelace. Was there any actresses in
the Our Gang series who's last name is Lovelace. She was supposivly still
alive in 1984, so that eliminates Darla Hood.
Thanks in advance.
Steve
Alfie wrote in message <3640CE25...@webspan.net>...
>Mike Warren wrote:
>>
>> Someone told me that they had heard on the radio where one of the
>> Little Rascals had just died??? Who was it?? Any info posted here
>> would be greatly appreciated? Thanks - Mike
>>
>I think it was Mary...Darla Hood has been dead for years.
>
>Alfie
JBFranck99
In article <3641bc20....@news.neosoft.com>, da...@neosoft.com (David
Carson) writes:
>Thanks for reposting the IMDB listing for Molly O'Day. Now, which
>Little Rascals film was she in?
I just did a comparison of the movies that the IMDB attributes to Molly O’Day
to the movies of Hal Roach and the Little Rascals/Our Gang films. I can’t find
a single movie that Molly O’Day did that had anything to do with either. I am
leaning towards the conclusion that the original news article, that I posted,
was mistaken and the Molly O’Day had nothing to do with either Hal Roach or the
Little Rascals.
JBF
The world was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your
children.
gjw
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Molly O'Day, a silent screen actress who began her short but
memorable career as a teenager in the "Our Gang" comedies, has died. She
was 88.
Ms. O'Day, who had lived in Avila Beach, Calif., since 1980, died
Thursday in Arroyo Grande, Calif., near San Luis Obispo.
The actress received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the
storied corner of Hollywood and Vine in the late 1920s. Hired by
director Hal Roach for the "Our Gang" shorts when she was a schoolgirl,
Ms. O'Day worked in comedies with such stars as Stan Laurel and Oliver
Hardy.
At 16, she defeated 2,000 contenders in an audition for the tough
girl heroine of the 1927 prizefighter movie "The Patent Leather Kid."
That role led to major parts in "The Lovelorn," "Hard-Boiled Haggerty,"
"Shepherd of the Hills," "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come," "Show of
Shows," "Sisters," "Hired Wife," "Gigolettes of Paris," "Skull and
Crown" and other features.
Born Suzanne Noonan, Ms. O'Day was the youngest of 11 children of
Metropolitan Opera singer Hannah Kelly and Bayonne, N.J., Judge Thomas
Francis Patrick Noonan. After their father's death, Ms. O'Day and two
sisters, along with their mother, moved to Hollywood. One of the sisters
became an equally successful actress, Sally O'Neil, who died in 1968.
Ms. O'Day suffered the rigors of early Hollywood - including a
much-reported two-year fight with her weight. At age 18, in 1928, she
was threatened with loss of her contract if she could not fit into a
specified size dress. So she resorted to "an operation for the removal
of surplus fat" at a Los Angeles hospital.
Ms. O'Day largely abandoned her career after her marriage in 1934 to
comedian Jack Durant of the vaudeville team Mitchell & Durant. The
couple had four children, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1951. Ms.
O'Day married oilman James McGregor Kenaston on Nov. 9, 1952, but
divorced him four years later.
As a resident of San Obispo County, Ms. O'Day was active in the Old
Mission Parish and worked with the homeless.
Survivors include her children, retired Col. John Durant, Suzanne
Raymond Bromberg, Virginia Durant Robertson and Jackie Baker; eight
grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren.
Copyright 1998, Newsday Inc
gjw
> Dear gjw,
>
> Thanks for reposting the IMDB listing for Molly O'Day. Now, which
> Little Rascals film was she in?
I did a bit more research, and it appears that she appeared in several
Our Gang shorts, but wasn't billed in the credits. I found two different
obits about her. Will post them in my next two posts.
gjw
Obituary: Molly O'Day
( Independent )
ONE OF the first film actresses to be given a star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame, Molly O'Day won great praise for her first major role, as
leading lady to Richard Barthelmess in the silent film The Patent
Leather
Kid (1927), and was a leading Hollywoodplayer until her love of eating,
and the desperate measures she took to contain her spreading figure, cut
short her career as a leading lady.
As her one-time lover George Raft later told his biographer Lewis
Yablonsky:
She was doing pretty well in films but she loved to overeat and that
weight proved to be her downfall. She tried some weird plastic surgery,
where she paid quack doctors a fortune for an operation in which they
tried to cut the fat off her body. Whenthey sewed her up she had seam
scars running up the sides of her formerly beautiful body. The operation
ruined her health, her career, and damn near killed her.
The youngest of 11 children, she was born Suzanne Noonan in 1909 in
Bayonne, New Jersey, the daughter of a judge and a Metropolitan Opera
singer, Hannah Kelly. After the judge's death, her mother took her three
youngest children to Hollywood, whereMolly's sister Sally O' Neil
became an "overnight star" with her role in Sally, Irene and Mary
(1925).
Molly, still a schoolgirl, was spotted by the producer Hal Roach and
played unbilled roles in several of his popular "Our Gang" comedy
shorts.
She alsoappeared in shorts with Buster Keaton ("a delightful man") and
Laurel and Hardy before getting her big break (after auditioning with
over
a hundred other girls) in The Patent Leather Kid, as the girl-friend of
Barthelmess, a prize-fighter who is toughin the ring but initially
cowardly
when sent to war.
The New York Times wrote:
Miss O'Day, who has only been seen in two-reelers, is the sister of
Sally
O'Neil. Her acting in this tale rivals that of Mr Barthelmess. She is
sincere
and earnest . . . she has beautiful large eyes and a retrousse nose,
which
serve her well before thecamera . . . she is most competent in a part
that
demands a great deal.
The same critic wrote of her following film Hard-Boiled Haggerty (1927),
"The little brunette with the bright eyes and white teeth, Molly O'Day,
does very well." O'Day then co-starred with her sister Sally in The
Lovelorn (1927), the pair playingsisters who seek the advice of a famed
agony-aunt columnist, Beatrice Fairfax.
She was the heroine of a 1928 version of the rural novel Shepherd of the
Hills (by Harold Bell Wright), then co-starred with Barthelmess again in
Kentucky Courage (1928), based on John Fox Jnr's Civil War novel The
Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come,though it was less well received than
the team's previous pairing.
Warner's all-star early talkie Show of Shows (1929) included a
production number, "Meet My Sister", in which nine pairs of movie
actresses who were real-life sisters were teamed in a salute to the
countries of the world. Molly and Sally had a choruscelebrating Ireland,
though compared to her sister it was evident that Molly was a lot
heavier.
The previous year she had met George Raft, still a fledgling actor
trying to
live down his mob-related past, at a party given by Texas Guinan. "There
was gorgeous dames all over the place," said Raft. "One in particular
was
Molly O'Day, who I began todate. She was a gorgeous girl, and one of
the sweetest, most gentle women I've ever met."
Some months later, after her affair had ended, O'Day's apartment in the
famed Garden of Allah was broken into and her jewels and money stolen.
Raft was arrested as a suspect, but convinced the police that he was a
reformed character, and shortlyafterwards found film fame himself when
cast in Scarface.
O'Day, having had the disastrous operation to reduce her weight while
still in her teens (she later stated that her studio had threatened to
cancel
her contract unless she could fit into a specified dress size), found
the
importance of her rolesdiminishing. She starred with sister Sally (whose
career was also fading) in the low-budget Sisters (1930), and in Sob
Sister (1931) she was billed sixth and had only a supporting role.
Gigolette of Paris (1933) and Hired Wife (1934) were low-budget
independent productions in which she played "best friend" roles, and Law
of the 45s (1935) was the first of the long-running Three Mes-quiteers
western series which would later feature theyoung John Wayne. Her last
films were Skull and Crown (1935) which starred Rin Tin Tin Jnr, son of
the famous canine star, and a low-grade western featuring Bill Cody,
Lawless Borders.
In 1935 O'Day married Jack Durant, a vaudeville comedian and half of
the team Mitchell and Durant; they had four children before their
divorce
in 1951. She married James McGregor, an oilman, the following year, but
that union lasted only four years. Theactress had abandoned her acting
career completely, and eventually became a successful real estate agent
in
California. She was active with the Old Mission Parish in her home town,
San Obisco County, and worked with the homeless.
Suzanne Noonan (Molly O'Day), actress: born Bayonne, New Jersey
16 October 1909; married 1935 Jack Durant (one son, three daughters;
marriage dissolved 1951), 1952 James McGregor (marriage dissolved
1956); died Arroyo Grande, California 15 October 1998.
©1998 Newspaper Publishing P.L.C.
Tom Vallance, Obituary: Molly O'Day., Independent, 10-28-1998, pp 6..
Brad Ferguson
jbfra...@aol.comNOSPAM (JBFranck99) wrote:
> In article <3641bc20....@news.neosoft.com>, da...@neosoft.com (David
> Carson) writes:
>
> >Thanks for reposting the IMDB listing for Molly O'Day. Now, which
> >Little Rascals film was she in?
>
> I just did a comparison of the movies that the IMDB attributes to Molly
O’Day
> to the movies of Hal Roach and the Little Rascals/Our Gang films. I
can’t find
> a single movie that Molly O’Day did that had anything to do with
either. I am
> leaning towards the conclusion that the original news article, that I
posted,
> was mistaken and the Molly O’Day had nothing to do with either Hal
Roach or the
> Little Rascals.
I've been lurking for a week and a half or so, trying to get up to speed
here again. This whole Molly O'Day thing bothers me. I can't imagine Hal
Roach hiring a high school freshman to play one of the little kids in his
comedies. It just doesn't make sense.
Like most of you, I'm not terribly familiar with the cast members of
Roach's silents. Shoot, I don't think anyone but Turner is running the
shorts anymore, and all he shows is the MGM-produced ones that were done
late (and to which he owns the rights). It used to be that three
generations of Our Gang shorts ran almost without cease on television: the
silents, under the title "Mischief Makers"; the familiar Roach ones, under
"The Little Rascals"; and the "Our Gang" shorts made by MGM. I thought
they'd run forever. Where'd they all go?
--
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Brad Ferguson
Carson) wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Nov 1998 21:49:14 -0600, "akasam1" <aka...@megsinet.net> wrote:
>
> >I had a drivers-ed teacher in high school who said his mother was the
> >'original' Darla. His last name was Lovelace. Was there any actresses in
> >the Our Gang series who's last name is Lovelace. She was supposivly still
> >alive in 1984, so that eliminates Darla Hood.
>
> You never know what someone means by a statement like "my mother was the
> original Darla on the Little Rascals." It could mean that she was
> selected to play a certain part, and may or may not have filmed some
> scenes, but for whatever reason was replaced by Darla Hood before final
> editing. That's often what people mean by "so-and-so was the original
> so-and-so," e.g. Buddy Ebsen/Tin Man and Edward G. Robinson/Dr. Zaius. I,
> for one, am not aware of any other Darla in the Little Rascals, nor any
> Rascals actress named Lovelace. Then again, I never heard of Molly O'Day
> either.
There's also the strtong possibiity that the teacher's mother was full of
alfalfa. Remember the supermarket bagger who fooled ABC into thinking he
was the original Buckwheat, who'd actually been dead for years (and looked
nothing like the bagger).
I knew a guy in the Adirondacks who claimed to be Linda Lovelace's father,
now that you mention Lovelace. I also ran into a guy in Tucson who ran a
brick company and claimed to be Linda Ronstadt's father.
Louis Epstein
: On Thu, 5 Nov 1998 21:49:14 -0600, "akasam1" <aka...@megsinet.net> wrote:
:
: >I had a drivers-ed teacher in high school who said his mother was the
: >'original' Darla. His last name was Lovelace. Was there any actresses in
: >the Our Gang series who's last name is Lovelace. She was supposivly still
: >alive in 1984, so that eliminates Darla Hood.
:
: You never know what someone means by a statement like "my mother was the
: original Darla on the Little Rascals." It could mean that she was
: selected to play a certain part, and may or may not have filmed some
: scenes, but for whatever reason was replaced by Darla Hood before final
: editing. That's often what people mean by "so-and-so was the original
: so-and-so," e.g. Buddy Ebsen/Tin Man and Edward G. Robinson/Dr. Zaius. I,
: for one, am not aware of any other Darla in the Little Rascals, nor any
: Rascals actress named Lovelace.
And of course...her son's name being Lovelace doesn't mean
that was her name when she would have been a child actress!