Susan Fleming

Susan Fleming

Born: February 19, 1908
Died: December 22, 2002
in New York City, New York, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Susan Fleming (February 19, 1908 – December 22, 2002) was an American actress and the wife of comic actor Harpo Marx. Fleming was known as the "Girl with the Million Dollar Legs" for a role she played in the W. C. Fields film Million Dollar Legs (1932). Her big stage break, which led to her Hollywood career, was as a Ziegfeld girl, performing in The Ziegfeld Follies.

Fleming was from New York City and went to school in Forest Hills, Queens. After starring in the Ziegfeld Follies productions on Broadway, she started appearing in movies. One of her earliest film roles was a starring role in Range Feud as Judy Walton, the love interest of John Wayne. Fleming combined her dancing and cinematic interests in the 1932 movie Million Dollar Legs, in which she played the daughter of W. C. Fields' character. As part of a publicity stunt for the film, her legs were insured for the eponymous million dollars.

Fleming was unhappy with Hollywood, stating in a 1995 interview that she found "nothing more boring than working on a movie... I hated it!". At a dinner party held in the home of Samuel Goldwyn, she was seated next to Harpo Marx and found him fascinating. Despite his silent persona in films, she found Marx to be "a warm, fun, darling man to talk to". She pursued him relentlessly, dating for four years and proposing marriage to him on three separate occasions before he accepted. She ended her Hollywood career when she married Marx on September 28, 1936. Fleming's wedding to Marx was revealed to the public when President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt sent the couple a telegram of congratulations in November. Marx had sent a thank you letter to Roosevelt in appreciation for a signed photograph of the President, in which Marx had stated that he was "in line for congratulations, too, having been married since September" in an unspecified "little town up North".

Fleming outlived Marx by almost forty years during which she was an artist and activist in the Palm Springs area. She died at age 94 on December 22, 2002, of a heart attack at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. She was survived by a daughter, three sons, five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Movies for Susan Fleming...

Title: Inner Sanctum
Released: January 9, 1954
Type: TV
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God's Country and the Woman
Title: God's Country and the Woman
Character: Grace Moran
Released: January 16, 1937
Type: Movie
Hard-nosed Jefferson Russett runs a logging company; his brother, Steve, is the prodigal son. Steve becomes stranded on the competition's property and slowly learns the business and of his brother's dirty tricks.
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Gold Diggers of 1937
Title: Gold Diggers of 1937
Character: Lucille Bailey
Released: December 28, 1936
Type: Movie
The partners of stage-producer J. J. Hobart gamble away the money for his new show. They enlist a gold-digging chorus girl to help get it back by conning an insurance company. But they don’t count on the persistence of insurance man Rosmer Peck and his secretary Norma Perry.
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Star for a Night
Title: Star for a Night
Character: Mildred La Rue
Released: August 28, 1936
Type: Movie
Blind Mrs. Lind comes to American to visit her three children whom she thinks are successful.
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Break of Hearts
Title: Break of Hearts
Character: Elise
Released: May 31, 1935
Type: Movie
Constance, a poor but aspiring composer, meets the great conductor, Franz, through their old music teacher. They fall in love, despite Constance knowing about Franz's weakness for pretty women.
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By Your Leave
Title: By Your Leave
Character: Miss Allen
Released: November 9, 1934
Type: Movie
A bored couple facing middle-age succumbs to wandering eyes.
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Elinor Norton
Title: Elinor Norton
Character: Publisher's Staff
Released: November 2, 1934
Type: Movie
A romantic triangle during WW I provides the basis of this drama. The trouble begins when a young wife gets involved with a coffee baron while her husband is off fighting WW I. Her shell-shocked husband finally returns. He is terribly jealous. To help him, the wife takes him to a Western dude ranch. Her lover also goes, and the two men soon become friends. The coffee magnate helps to cure him, but then breaks his heart by telling him that he and the wife are planning to run away.
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Call It Luck
Title: Call It Luck
Character: Alice Blue
Released: July 9, 1934
Type: Movie
A London taxicab driver cashes in on a big sweepstakes ticket and becomes the prey of a confidence-gang that sells him a nag of a cavalry horse on the claim that it is a brother to a current Derby winner.
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Charlie Chan's Courage
Title: Charlie Chan's Courage
Character: Chorus Girl
Released: July 6, 1934
Type: Movie
Charlie is hired to deliver a pearl necklace to a millionaire at his ranch. When murder intervenes he disguises himself as a Chinese servant and begins sleuthing.
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She Learned About Sailors
Title: She Learned About Sailors
Character: Departing Sailor's Girlfriend
Released: June 28, 1934
Type: Movie
Shanghai nightclub singer Jean falls in love to a sailor, but after his ship left Shanghai, he is of the opinion that he cannot support her in the States, so he writes her in a letter, that he will not see her again, but two practical jokers intercept it and write another with an opposite content. Jean comes to the states, but her sailor doesn't acknowledge her, but the two don't give up trying to bring Jean and sailor back together.
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Broadway Thru a Keyhole
Title: Broadway Thru a Keyhole
Character: Chorine
Released: November 2, 1933
Type: Movie
Racketeer Frank Rocci is smitten with Joan Whelan, a dancer at Texas Guinan's famous Broadway night spot. He uses his influence to help her get a starring role in the show, hoping that it will also get Joan to fall in love with him. After scoring a hit, Joan accepts Frank's marriage proposal, more out of gratitude than love. The situation gets even stickier when she falls for a handsome band leader during a trip to Florida. Can she tell Frank she's in love with someone else?
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My Weakness
Title: My Weakness
Character: Jacqueline Wood
Released: September 22, 1933
Type: Movie
A wealthy young man bets his uncle that he can transform a clumsy cleaning lady into a glamorous fashion plate, then marry her off to his bachelor cousin.
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I Love That Man
Title: I Love That Man
Character: Miss Jones - Stenographer
Released: July 7, 1933
Type: Movie
Innocent Nancy Carroll falls in love with con man Edmund Lowe and the pair swindle their way across the country until they decide to settle down in a small town and give up their life of crime. He goes into business and all seems to be going well until some ex-partners he double crossed show up in town demanding the money he cheated them out of.
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He Learned About Women
Title: He Learned About Women
Character: Joan Allen
Released: March 2, 1933
Type: Movie
He Learned About Women is a 1932 American Pre-Code comedy film directed by Lloyd Corrigan and written by Lloyd Corrigan, Ray Harris and Harlan Thompson. The film stars Stuart Erwin, Susan Fleming, Alison Skipworth, Gordon Westcott, Grant Mitchell and Sidney Toler. The film was released on November 4, 1932, by Paramount Pictures
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Million Dollar Legs
Title: Million Dollar Legs
Character: Angela
Released: July 8, 1932
Type: Movie
A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money.
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Careless Lady
Title: Careless Lady
Character: Guest of Captain Girard
Released: April 2, 1932
Type: Movie
Innocent Sally Brown thinks men are only attracted to experienced women, so she poses as the wife of an unmarried businessman on a trip to Paris.
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Ladies of the Jury
Title: Ladies of the Jury
Character: Mrs. Crane's Maid Suzanne (uncredited)
Released: February 2, 1932
Type: Movie
Society matron Mrs. Livingston Baldwin Crane is selected as a juror in the trial of former chorus girl Yvette Gordon, who's accused of murdering her rich older husband. In court and during deliberations, Mrs. Crane proves to be a disruptive and unorthodox juror.
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The Range Feud
Title: The Range Feud
Character: Judy Walton
Released: October 14, 1931
Type: Movie
Clint Turner is arrested for the murder of his girlfriend Judy's father, a rival rancher who was an enemy of his own father, and his best friend, Sheriff Buck Gordon sets out to find the real killer in the face of pressure for a quick lynching of Clint.
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A Dangerous Affair
Title: A Dangerous Affair
Character: Florence
Released: September 29, 1931
Type: Movie
Holt plays police lieutenant McHenry, while Graves is his friendly rival, crime reporter Wally Cook. After the two men verbally duel over a variety of details, they hunker down to business, that of solving the murder of a lawyer who was in the midst of reading a will to a motley collection of heirs.