Luana Walters

Luana Walters

Born: July 22, 1912
Died: May 19, 1963
in Los Angeles, California, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Luana Walters (July 22, 1912 - May 19, 1963) was a motion picture actress from Los Angeles, California.

Walters was an expert horsewoman which led to her discovery as an actress at a rodeo in Palm Springs, California. She won a woman's bucking contest which was being watched by a movie scout, who noticed her.

Her film career began when she visited a friend on a United Artists lot. Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was excited about her screen possibilities and arranged for a film test. However, only three days later Fairbanks went to Europe, and the test was never completed. Not long afterwards Joe Schenck saw Walters on the dance floor at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, California. After viewing the abbreviated test made by Fairbanks, Schenck offered her a contract with United Artists. The studio did not make a movie in the next six months so Walters' option was not taken up.

Walters' screen credits start with an uncredited role in Reaching For The Moon (film) (1930). Her skill as an equestrian helped her in parts in westerns like Ride 'Em Cowboy (1936), Where The West Begins (1938), Mexicali Rose (1939), and Law Of The Wolf (1939).

On many occasions Walters made films in which her role was cut out. This began when she made Reaching for the Moon (film) with Fairbanks. Her parts were also deleted from Spawn of the North (1938) and Souls At Sea (1937). The former was a Carole Lombard feature and the latter paired Walters with Robert Cummings.

Walters was the first actress to portray Superman's biological mother Lara in a live-action format. She appeared in "Superman Comes to Earth", the first chapter of the 1948 Superman movie serial. Portions of this depiction appear in flashback in "At the Mercy of Atom Man!", the seventh chapter of the 1950 serial Atom Man vs. Superman.

In the latter portion of her career Walters was in a number of B-Movie films, most of them of the sci-fi and horror genres. She plays a female reporter on the trail of a fiend's story in The Corpse Vanishes (1942), with Bela Lugosi. She appears as a cellblock guard in Girls In Prison (1956). Her final role came in The She Creature (1956).

Luana Walters died of liver failure due to alcoholism in Los Angeles in 1963.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Luana Walters, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies for Luana Walters...

Horrible Horror
Title: Horrible Horror
Character: Patricia Hunter in 'The Corpse Vanishes'
Released: January 1, 1986
Type: Movie
A collection of trailers and previews from various low-budget horror films of the '50s and '60s.
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Girls in Prison
Title: Girls in Prison
Character: Cellblock guard
Released: July 1, 1956
Type: Movie
An inmate is persuaded to take part in a breakout by cellmates anxious to cash in on loot they believe she has hidden.
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Arthur Takes Over
Title: Arthur Takes Over
Character: Newspaper Woman
Released: April 7, 1948
Type: Movie
A young woman must find a way to break the news to her parents and a stuffy suitor that she is now married to a sailor.
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Shoot to Kill
Title: Shoot to Kill
Character: Marian Langdon (as Susan Walters)
Released: March 15, 1947
Type: Movie
A gritty crime story involving a newspaper man and crooked politicians.
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Drums of Fu Manchu
Title: Drums of Fu Manchu
Character: Mary Randolph
Released: November 27, 1943
Type: Movie
Feature version of the 1940 Republic serial, about Fu Manchu's attempt to conquer Asia.
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Bad Men of the Hills
Title: Bad Men of the Hills
Character: Laurie Bishop
Released: August 13, 1942
Type: Movie
U.S. Marshal Dave Upjohn arrives in Sundown to investigate reports of lawlessness.
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Thundering Hoofs
Title: Thundering Hoofs
Character: Nancy Kellogg
Released: July 24, 1942
Type: Movie
Bill Underwood falls out with his father and chooses the life of a cowhand rather than take charge of his father's stage line.
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Down Texas Way
Title: Down Texas Way
Character: Mary Hopkins
Released: May 22, 1942
Type: Movie
"The Rough Riders", has U. S. Marshals Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) and Tim McCall (Tim McCoy) coming to a Texas town to visit their friend, U. S. Marshal Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton), only to learn that he has disappeared, and is suspected of the murder of John Dodge (Jack Daley), owner of practically the whole town, except the hotel Sandy owns and runs when he isn't on an assignment as a Marshal. The murder has been committed by the henchmen of Bart Logan (Harry Woods), who intends to take over the dead man's property and whose men are holding Sandy prisoner to make it appear that he fled after arguing with and killing Dodge. Just before the murder, Logan sent a letter to Dodge with the news that the latter's long-missing wife is returning, and in a short while, Stella (Lois Austin), a Logan accomplice, arrives posing as the missing Ann Dodge, thus establishing her right to the Dodge property. Sandy, allowed to escape, returns ... Written by Les Adams
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Inside the Law
Title: Inside the Law
Character: Dora Mason
Released: May 8, 1942
Type: Movie
A gang of crooks wrestles with the temptation to rob the bank that they now manage.
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The Corpse Vanishes
Title: The Corpse Vanishes
Character: Patricia Hunter, Reporter
Released: May 8, 1942
Type: Movie
A scientist keeps his wife young by killing, stealing the bodies of, and taking the gland fluid from virgin brides.
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Lawless Plainsmen
Title: Lawless Plainsmen
Character: Baltimore Bonnie Dixon
Released: March 17, 1942
Type: Movie
In this western, a ranch foreman and the bosses son go to a saloon to slake their thirst and find themselves in the midst of a battle started by the feisty saloon owner's wicked ex-husband who loots the safe in the ensuing scuffle.
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Captain Midnight
Title: Captain Midnight
Character: Fury Shark
Released: February 15, 1942
Type: Movie
Secret Service Major Steel is one of the few men in America aware of the fact that Captain Albright is also Captain Midnight, daring masked aviator dedicated to fighting gangsters and enemies of America.
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The Lone Star Vigilantes
Title: The Lone Star Vigilantes
Character: Marcia Banning
Released: January 1, 1942
Type: Movie
It's Wild Bill Elliot as Wild Bill Hickok in the Columbia B-western Lone Star Vigilantes. Returning from Civil War duty, Hickok, Tex Martin and Cannonball find that their Texas home town is under the rule of Colonel Monroe, a bush-league dictator with his own police force. In true Hitlerian fashion, Monroe extorts huge sums of money from the populace, terrorizing them into silence. Our three heroes set about to put an end to Monroe's regime, with time out for Tex Ritter's musical interludes.
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No Greater Sin
Title: No Greater Sin
Character: Sandra James
Released: August 29, 1941
Type: Movie
The dangers of the dread venereal disease syphilis are depicted in this earnest drama from the 1940s. The story centers upon an intrepid health commissioner who is out to get rid of the tawdry hookers responsible for spreading the disease.
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Arizona Bound
Title: Arizona Bound
Character: Ruth Masters
Released: July 19, 1941
Type: Movie
The Rough Riders are called in to help save Master's stage line. Taggart has his gang robbing the stages and shooting the drivers. When Buck drives the next stage, Taggart's men rob it and then make it look like Roberts is part of the gang. Written by Maurice Van Auken
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Across the Sierras
Title: Across the Sierras
Character: Anne Woodworth
Released: February 13, 1941
Type: Movie
Elliott is hunted by Curtis who has spent six years behind bars because of his testimony. After knocking out several baddies and putting up with the zany antics of his sidekick Taylor, Elliott guns down his antagonist, but Luana Walters, the girl he almost marries, will not abide a gunslinger so Elliott is compelled to ride off alone into the sunset once more.
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The Kid's Last Ride
Title: The Kid's Last Ride
Character: Sally Rowell
Released: February 10, 1941
Type: Movie
The fifth film in the 24-film Range Busters series finds "Crash", "Dusty" and Alibi, on their way to Gopher City to become the town's peace officers. In the saloon, young Jimmy Rowell is losing money in a crooked poker game to saloon owner Bob Harmon. Harmon and his henchman Bart Gill are in reality wanted-outlaw brothers Jim and Ike Breedon seeking revenge against Jimmy and his school-teaching sister Sally as their father, a circuit judge in Nebraska, had sentenced their brother Bud to be hanged. Harmon involves Jimmy, because of his gambling debts, in a robbery of a rancher known to keep large amounts of money at his ranch. The Range Busters break up the robbery, Bart is killed, as is Rancher Fleming, and Jimmy is wounded but escapes. Harmon, setting a trap for Crash, tricks Sally and Jimmy to his hideout, and Crash follows them.
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Misbehaving Husbands
Title: Misbehaving Husbands
Character: Jane Forbes
Released: December 20, 1940
Type: Movie
Marital comedy in which a department store mannequin is mistaken for "the other woman".
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Blondie Plays Cupid
Title: Blondie Plays Cupid
Character: Millie
Released: October 31, 1940
Type: Movie
The Bumstead family is off to see relatives in the country when Blondie runs into Charlie and Millie, an eloping couple needing her help.
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The Range Busters
Title: The Range Busters
Character: Carol Thorp
Released: August 22, 1940
Type: Movie
A phantom-like gunman is murdering the hands at the Circle T Ranch and the Range Busters are recruited by its owner to stop the "phantom". Only, the ranch owner is killed before they can arrive. First film in the Range Buster series.
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The Tulsa Kid
Title: The Tulsa Kid
Character: Mary Wallace
Released: August 16, 1940
Type: Movie
A protegee of notorious outlaw Montana (Beery), young Tom Benton decides to stay on the good side of the Law upon reaching maturity. Montana, however, has no such inclination to reform, the result being a climactic gun duel between the ageing gunman and his former pupil.
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The Durango Kid
Title: The Durango Kid
Character: Nancy Winslow
Released: August 15, 1940
Type: Movie
The Durango Kid is a sort of Robin Hood of the West who helps the lovely Walters (who replaced Starrett's usual love-interest, Iris Meredith), the daughter of a homesteader, defeat the evil MacDonald who has been terrorizing the decent citizens with his gang of rustlers.
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The Return of Wild Bill
Title: The Return of Wild Bill
Character: Kate Kilgore
Released: June 26, 1940
Type: Movie
When Matt Kilgore and his men frame and then hang an innocent man, Lige Saunders sends for his son Wild Bill Saunders who arrives to find his father shot by Matt's brother. When the brother is killed in his fight with Bill, Matt sends two fake Deputies to arrest Bill whom he then plans to hang. But Matt's sister, attracted to Bill, overhears the plan and rides for help.
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Drums of Fu Manchu
Title: Drums of Fu Manchu
Character: Mary Randolph
Released: March 15, 1940
Type: Movie
The nefarious Dr. Fu Manchu searches for the keys to the tomb of Genghis Khan, in order to fulfill a prophecy that will enable him to conquer the world. His nemesi, Dr. Nayland Smith and his associates fight to keep the evil doctor from getting his hands on the keys. In 1943 the serial was edited together into a feature movie also called Drums of Fu Manchu.
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Millionaire Playboy
Title: Millionaire Playboy
Character: Resort Girl
Released: March 14, 1940
Type: Movie
A young millionaire gets hiccups whenever he kisses a pretty woman.
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Eternally Yours
Title: Eternally Yours
Character: Girl at Shower (uncredited)
Released: October 7, 1939
Type: Movie
Anita, engaged to solid Don Barnes, is swept off her feet by magician Arturo. Before you can say presto, she's his wife and stage assistant on a lengthy world tour. But Anita is annoyed by Arturo's constant flirtations, and his death-defying stunts give her nightmares. And forget her plan to retire to a farmhouse. Eventually, she has had enough and disappears.
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Honeymoon in Bali
Title: Honeymoon in Bali
Character: Girl Having Her Fortune Told (uncredited)
Released: September 29, 1939
Type: Movie
Bill Burnett, a resident of Bali, visits New York City, meets and falls in love with Gail Allen, the successful manager of a Fifth Avenue shop, who is determined to remain free and independent. Bill proposes, Gail declines and Bill goes home to Bali. But a young girl, Rosie, and Tony the Window Cleaner, who dispels advice on every floor, soon have Gail thinking maybe she was a bit hasty with her no to Bill's proposal. Ere long she discovers that she does love Bill and can't live without him. She goes down to Bali to give him the good news. He learns that he is soon to marry Noel Van Ness. She goes back to New York City.
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Mutiny on the Blackhawk
Title: Mutiny on the Blackhawk
Released: July 31, 1939
Type: Movie
Story deals with slave-running between Hawaii and California in 1840, featuring a wild mutiny aboard a slave ship on the high seas, the bartering of natives for slavery in a tropical paradise, and battle scenes between enraged California settlers and the Mexican Army.
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Law of the Wolf
Title: Law of the Wolf
Character: Ruth Adams
Released: June 15, 1939
Type: Movie
When a man is wrongly accused of murder, a dog helps clear his name.
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Hotel Imperial
Title: Hotel Imperial
Character: Nurse (uncredited)
Released: May 11, 1939
Type: Movie
It is the fate of a small frontier town, adjoining the no-man's-land where the Russians and Austrians are fighting out one of the final campaigns of World War I, to be occupied one day by the Russians, the next by the Austrians, and the inhabitants soon acquire a complacent view of the changing allegiances. To the town comes Ann Warschaska, intent on avenging the suicide of her sister, who has killed herself after being betrayed by an Austrian officer. She knows no more about his identity than the number of his room at the "Hotel Imperial".
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Mexicali Rose
Title: Mexicali Rose
Character: Anita Loredo
Released: March 26, 1939
Type: Movie
Gene Autry and his sidekick Frog look into a phony oil scam being perpetrated on a mission orphanage.
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Cafe Society
Title: Cafe Society
Character: Cigarette Girl
Released: March 3, 1939
Type: Movie
A pampered heiress (Madeleine Carroll) elopes with a shipboard reporter (Fred MacMurray) just to get her name in a society column.
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Paris Honeymoon
Title: Paris Honeymoon
Character: Angela
Released: January 27, 1939
Type: Movie
A Texas millionaire travels to Europe to meet his girlfriend, a European countess. He stops in a rustic mountain village and meets a beautiful peasant girl. He falls in love with her, then must decide if he wants her or the rich countess.
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Fangs of the Wild
Title: Fangs of the Wild
Character: Carol Dean
Released: January 1, 1939
Type: Movie
Foxes are disappearing from fox farms.
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Say It in French
Title: Say It in French
Character: Hat Check Girl
Released: November 25, 1938
Type: Movie
An American golf pro falls in love with a woman while visiting France; before long they are married and in the US. Upon their arrival, they are dismayed to discover that the golfer's parents have arranged for him to marry a wealthy socialite so they can use her money to support their business....
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Thanks for the Memory
Title: Thanks for the Memory
Character: Model (uncredited)
Released: November 11, 1938
Type: Movie
Steve Merrick is an out of work writer who stays home and plays house husband while his wife goes to work for her former fiancé and Merrick's publisher who is still carrying a torch for her.
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Marie Antoinette
Title: Marie Antoinette
Character: Woman in Gaming House (uncredited)
Released: August 26, 1938
Type: Movie
The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
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Assassin of Youth
Title: Assassin of Youth
Character: Joan Barry
Released: February 23, 1938
Type: Movie
A high-school girl gets involved with a ring of teenage marijuana smokers and starts down the road to ruin. A reporter poses as a soda jerk to infiltrate the gang of teen dope fiends.
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The Buccaneer
Title: The Buccaneer
Character: Suzette
Released: February 4, 1938
Type: Movie
French pirate Jean Lafitte rescues a girl and joins the War of 1812.
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Where the West Begins
Title: Where the West Begins
Character: Lynne Reed
Released: February 2, 1938
Type: Movie
Lynne Reed, Jack Manning's fiancée, is stagestruck and wants to go to New York for a career. She is encouraged in this delusion that she is a great actress by Barnes, who offers to buy her ranch, cheaply of course, so she can have enough money to get to the Big City. Barnes has Jack thrown into jail on a trumped-up charge of cattle rustling, and organizes a lynching party to get Jack permanently out of the way. Things get more complicated when Buzz, Jack's pal, discovers the secret of Lynne's ranch. How he engineers Jack's escape, and how they save Lynne adds suspense to a surprise climax.
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Youth on Parole
Title: Youth on Parole
Character: Salesgirl (uncredited)
Released: October 4, 1937
Type: Movie
Two strangers, a man and a woman, are framed for a jewel robbery and thrown in jail. After they get out, they join forces to track down the real thieves.
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Under Strange Flags
Title: Under Strange Flags
Character: Dolores de Vargas
Released: April 11, 1937
Type: Movie
Not quite a western, not quite a historical drama, Under Strange Flags is a little bit of both, and a lot of former RKO Radio cowboy hero Tom Keene. The star is cast as Tom Kenyon, a roving adventurer in Mexico during the Revolution. Hoping to protect the silver mine owned by heroine Dolores De Vargas (Luana Walters), Tom receives unexpected assistance from none other than rebel leader Pancho Villa (Maurice Black).
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Shadow of Chinatown
Title: Shadow of Chinatown
Character: Sonya Rokoff
Released: October 17, 1936
Type: Movie
Feature version of the 1936 serial starring Bela Lugosi. A European importing firm resorts to devious extremes to run its Chinese competition out of business.
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Shadow of Chinatown
Title: Shadow of Chinatown
Character: Sonya Rokoff
Released: October 10, 1936
Type: Movie
A madman sets out to destroy a group of Chinatown merchants.
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Ride 'Em Cowboy
Title: Ride 'Em Cowboy
Character: Lillian Howard
Released: September 20, 1936
Type: Movie
A cowboy turns auto racer, beats his rival and wins a girl.
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Aces and Eights
Title: Aces and Eights
Character: Juanita Hernandez
Released: June 6, 1936
Type: Movie
A card sharp steps in when a Mexican family's ranch is threatened by swindlers and cheats.
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The Speed Reporter
Title: The Speed Reporter
Character: May
Released: May 13, 1936
Type: Movie
Spectacular stunt work by Richard Talmadge, circus acrobat and stunt man for Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., highlights this expose of a big city criminal mastermind.
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The Third Sex
Title: The Third Sex
Character: Elinor Gordon
Released: November 8, 1934
Type: Movie
An exploitation film about homosexuality. The film is believed to be lost. Elinor Gordon, who was frightened sexually by a man while an infant, confides in her psychoanalyst that she is contemplating yielding to the advances of her overly attentive and affectionate female roommate, Bobby Allen. The psychoanalyst advises the woman to dispossess her roommate, who works in the same law office as she, and to marry a football player. After the young woman rebuffs her roommate, she accompanies her lawyer employer, Dave Warren, to the country home of the firm's senior partner, John Grant. While Elinor falls in love with Dave, the senior partner's socialite daughter, Judy, yearns for Paul, an artist, who, unknown to her, is a homosexual.
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Fighting Texans
Title: Fighting Texans
Character: Jo Ann Carver
Released: June 15, 1933
Type: Movie
Randolph Graves, a high-pressure haberdashery salesman, is fired for arguing with a customer and gets job selling oil stock in a nearby town; there he falls in love with the sheriff's daughter and tangles with crooked stock promoters.
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End of the Trail
Title: End of the Trail
Character: Luana
Released: December 19, 1932
Type: Movie
Framed by Major Jenkins, Capt. Travers is kicked out of the Army. When Travers, now living with the Indians, is captured by Jenkins, the Indians attack the fort. With his men greatly outnumbered Colonel Burke realizes that Travers is their only chance.
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Two Seconds
Title: Two Seconds
Character: Tart (uncredited)
Released: May 28, 1932
Type: Movie
A condemned murderer, in the process of being executed, relives the events that led to his being sentenced to die in the electric chair. Told in flashback, we witness a sleazy dancehall girl (Vivienne Osborne) dupe a high rise riveter (Edward G. Robinson) into marriage so she can live off of him. But when he loses his job and his marbles, she ends up supporting him with money from her side man--and misses no opportunity to rub it in his face that she's now supporting him in his emasculated state. As the animosity grows and things get more and more unbearable, he is eventually driven to desperate measures.
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Miss Pinkerton
Title: Miss Pinkerton
Character: First Nurse (uncredited)
Released: May 27, 1932
Type: Movie
Scion of the once-rich Mitchell family, Herbert Wynn is found shot to death. Nurse Adams, bored by hospital routine, is recruited by the police to ferret out clues as she tends to Wynn's elderly aunt Julia. Jokingly given the 'rank' of Miss Pinkerton, after the famous detective agency, Adams probes into the mystery, but not before a second death.