Rita Johnson

Rita Johnson

Born: August 13, 1913
Died: October 31, 1965
in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Rita Ann Johnson (August 13, 1913 – October 31, 1965) was an American actress.

Early in her career, Johnson was busy in radio.

Johnson began acting on Broadway in 1935 and started her film career two years later. She played a murderer in Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) and a doomed wife in the RKO film noir They Won't Believe Me (1947).

In an incident that was never fully explained, Johnson suffered a head trauma on September 6, 1948 that required brain surgery. Unsubstantiated rumors promulgated by gossip columnists such as Walter Winchell suggested she might have been abused by a boyfriend, but the only explanation she offered was that a large, industrial-grade hair dryer at her apartment had fallen on her. She was in a coma for two weeks and it was reported it took her a year to recover. Her left side was paralyzed temporarily and for a while she couldn't walk. The injury put a virtual halt to her film career. Her screen time in movies after that was limited due to her reduced mobility and powers of concentration. Johnson suffered from alcoholism from the time of her injuries until her death of a brain hemorrhage at age 52.

From Wikipedia.

Movies for Rita Johnson...

All Mine to Give
Title: All Mine to Give
Character: Katie Tyler
Released: November 13, 1957
Type: Movie
This is a story based on fact that follows a husband and wife who emigrate from Scotland to Wisconsin in the 1850s. They work very hard and become welcome citizens of their new town, Eureka. They have six children. They prosper in the husband's boat-building business. But when their eldest is 12, tragedy strikes the family, and the 12-year-old is burdened with a terrible task which he handles as well as any adult could.
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Emergency Hospital
Title: Emergency Hospital
Character: Head Nurse Norma Mullen
Released: November 2, 1956
Type: Movie
About the lives and loves of the staff of an emergency hospital as reflected in a single frenetic night of business-as-usual.
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Susan Slept Here
Title: Susan Slept Here
Character: Dr. Rawley
Released: July 28, 1954
Type: Movie
On Christmas Eve, suffering from a case of writer's block, screenwriter Mark Christopher and his gofer Virgil get an unexpected visit from Sergeant Maizel. Knowing Christopher is working on a juvenile delinquent script, the sergeant brings by delinquent Susan thinking she will inspire Christopher while providing a place for her to spend the holidays outside of juvenile hall.
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Title: The Lone Wolf
Released: January 1, 1954
Type: TV
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Title: Mr. & Mrs. North
Released: October 3, 1952
Type: TV
Mr. & Mrs. North is an American comedy/mystery television series that aired on CBS from October 3, 1952 to May 25, 1954. The series centers on Jerry North, a mystery magazine publisher who thinks he is a good amateur detective, and his wife, Pamela, as they solve crimes in New York City.
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The Second Face
Title: The Second Face
Character: Claire Elwood
Released: December 1, 1950
Type: Movie
A homely girl is seriously injured in a car crash. When she eventually wakes up in the hospital, she's astounded to see that plastic surgery has transformed her into a world-class beauty. When she finds out that a mysterious "benefactor" has paid for her surgery, she sets out to find out who he is and why he did it.
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The Art Director
Title: The Art Director
Character: Self - from 'The Big Clock' (archive footage) (uncredited)
Released: November 12, 1949
Type: Movie
A film's art director is in charge of the set, from conception to construction to furnishing. This short film walks the viewer through art directors' responsibilities and the demands on their talents. They read a script carefully and design a set to capture the time and place, the social strata, and the mood. They must be scholars of the history of architecture, furnishings, and fashion. They choose the colors on a set in anticipation of the lighting and the mood. Their work also sets styles, from Art Deco in the 20's to 30s modernism. Then it's on to the next project. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
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Family Honeymoon
Title: Family Honeymoon
Character: Minna Fenster
Released: December 6, 1948
Type: Movie
Grant Jordan, bachelor botany professor, marries Katie, a widow with three kids, despite the machinations of Grant's former girlfriend Minna. But on the wedding day, Aunt Jo, who was to babysit, breaks a leg; so the kids come along on the honeymoon.
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An Innocent Affair
Title: An Innocent Affair
Character: Eve Lawrence
Released: October 15, 1948
Type: Movie
Vincent Doane is in the precarious position of trying to close an advertising account with his rich ex-fiancée. Unfortunately she is more interested in him than in business. Vincent's wife Paula gets suspicious and finally decides to do some flirting of her own to make him jealous. Unknown to her, she chooses cigarette tychoon Claude Kimball. In fact, Kimball hits it off well with both of the Doanes. The question is whether or not their marriage can survive all the shenanigans.
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The Big Clock
Title: The Big Clock
Character: Pauline York
Released: March 18, 1948
Type: Movie
Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor has to post-pone a vacation with his wife, again, when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss Janoth to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence (albeit wrong) that he is the killer.
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Sleep, My Love
Title: Sleep, My Love
Character: Barby
Released: February 18, 1948
Type: Movie
A woman wakes up in the middle of the night on board a train, but she can't remember how she got there. Danger and suspense ensue.
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Michigan Kid
Title: Michigan Kid
Character: Sue Dawson
Released: August 11, 1947
Type: Movie
A former U.S. marshal rescues an instant heiress from an outlaw's gang.
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They Won't Believe Me
Title: They Won't Believe Me
Character: Greta Ballentine
Released: July 16, 1947
Type: Movie
On trial for murdering his girlfriend, philandering stockbroker Larry Ballentine takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable sounding, sequence of events that led to her death.
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The Perfect Marriage
Title: The Perfect Marriage
Character: Mabel Manning
Released: January 24, 1947
Type: Movie
A couple celebrate their tenth anniversary by quarreling their way to divorce court.
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Pardon My Past
Title: Pardon My Past
Character: Mary Pemberton
Released: December 24, 1945
Type: Movie
Eddie York (MacMurray) is mistaken for playboy Francis Pemberton and gets into trouble.
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The Affairs of Susan
Title: The Affairs of Susan
Character: Mona Kent
Released: July 8, 1945
Type: Movie
Susan is about to be married, but the wedding may get called off after her fiancé summons three former beaus. Each reveals a different portrait of Susan: one describes her as a naive country girl who reluctantly becomes an actress, another paints a picture of a gay party girl and and the third describes a serious intellectual.
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The Naughty Nineties
Title: The Naughty Nineties
Character: Bonita Farrow
Released: June 20, 1945
Type: Movie
In the gay '90s, cardsharps take over a Mississippi riverboat from a kindly captain. Their first act is to change the showboat into a floating gambling house. A ham actor and his bumbling sidekick try to devise a way to help the captain regain ownership of the vessel.
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Thunderhead - Son of Flicka
Title: Thunderhead - Son of Flicka
Character: Nelle McLaughlin
Released: March 15, 1945
Type: Movie
A young boy tries to train Thunderhead, a beautiful white colt and the son of his beloved Flicka, to be a champion race horse.
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My Friend Flicka
Title: My Friend Flicka
Character: Nell McLaughlin
Released: May 26, 1943
Type: Movie
Ken McLaughlin is a precocious 10-year-old who lives with his family on a remote Wyoming ranch. When Ken returns home from school with failing grades, his father, Rob, blames the boy's lack of personal responsibility. At the suggestion of his wife, Nell, Rob allows Ken to choose a single colt from the herd to raise as his own. Much to his father's dismay, Ken chooses a fiery mustang filly -- but the two soon become fast friends.
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The Major and the Minor
Title: The Major and the Minor
Character: Pamela Hill
Released: September 16, 1942
Type: Movie
Susan Applegate, tired of New York after one year and twenty-five jobs, decides to return to her home town in Iowa. Discovering she hasn't enough money for the train fare, Susan disguises herself as a twelve-year-old and travels for half the price. Caught out by the conductors, she hides in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby, a military school instructor who takes the "child" under his wing.
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Appointment for Love
Title: Appointment for Love
Character: Nancy Benson
Released: October 31, 1941
Type: Movie
Charming Andre Cassil woos physician Jane Alexander and the two impulsively get married. The honeymoon ends very quickly when Jane voices her progressive views on marriage which include the two having separate apartments. Andre then tries to make his wife jealous in order to lure her into his bedroom.
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Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Title: Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Character: Julia Farnsworth
Released: August 7, 1941
Type: Movie
Boxer Joe Pendleton, flying to his next fight, crashes...because a Heavenly Messenger, new on the job, snatched Joe's spirit prematurely from his body. Before the matter can be rectified, Joe's body is cremated; so the celestial Mr. Jordan grants him the use of the body of wealthy Bruce Farnsworth, who's just been murdered by his wife. Joe tries to remake Farnsworth's unworthy life in his own clean-cut image, but then falls in love; and what about that murderous wife?
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The Golden Fleecing
Title: The Golden Fleecing
Character: Mary Blake
Released: August 16, 1940
Type: Movie
A mild-mannered insurance salesman gets mixed up with gangsters.
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Edison, the Man
Title: Edison, the Man
Character: Mary Stilwell
Released: May 10, 1940
Type: Movie
In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.
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Forty Little Mothers
Title: Forty Little Mothers
Character: Marian Edwards
Released: April 26, 1940
Type: Movie
An out-of-work professor gets a break from an old college buddy to teach at an exclusive girl's school. But events conspire against him: he finds an abandoned child which he takes under his wing, despite the school's rules against teachers having a family; and the girls in the school resent his replacing a handsome and popular teacher, and do everything in their power to get him fired.
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Congo Maisie
Title: Congo Maisie
Character: Kay McWade
Released: January 19, 1940
Type: Movie
Maisie gets lost in a jungle in Africa and the jungle of romance. The African jungle has snakes, crocodiles and witch doctors. The romantic jungle has a dedicated doctor with an un-dedicated wife and an embittered doctor who is dedicated to no one.
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Nick Carter, Master Detective
Title: Nick Carter, Master Detective
Character: Lou Farnsby
Released: December 13, 1939
Type: Movie
Detective Nick Carter is brought in to foil spies at the Radex Airplane Factory, where a new fighter plane is under manufacture.
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They All Come Out
Title: They All Come Out
Character: Kitty
Released: August 4, 1939
Type: Movie
A down on his luck young man stumbles into a gang of robbers who all get landed in prison. Will he be reformed, or is he ensnared into a life of crime?
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Stronger Than Desire
Title: Stronger Than Desire
Character: Barbara Winter
Released: June 30, 1939
Type: Movie
An attorney handling a murder case in unaware his own wife played a crucial role in the killing.
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6,000 Enemies
Title: 6,000 Enemies
Character: Anne Barry
Released: June 9, 1939
Type: Movie
A tough prosecutor who has sent dozens of criminals to prison finds himself framed on a bribery charge and winds up in prison himself.
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Broadway Serenade
Title: Broadway Serenade
Character: Judith 'Judy' Tyrrell
Released: April 7, 1939
Type: Movie
A married singer, pianist/composer team are struggling to hit it big in New York. Finally, they audition before a Broadway producer, but the producer only wants the singer, leaving the husband without a job and feeling a failure.
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Within the Law
Title: Within the Law
Character: Agnes Lynch
Released: March 17, 1939
Type: Movie
A wrongly convicted woman studies law and seeks her revenge.
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Honolulu
Title: Honolulu
Character: Cecelia Grayson
Released: February 3, 1939
Type: Movie
Wanting a break from his overzealous fans, a famous movie star hires a Hawaiian plantation owner to switch places with him for a few weeks.
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The Girl Downstairs
Title: The Girl Downstairs
Character: Rosalind Brown
Released: December 23, 1938
Type: Movie
A wealthy playboy surreptitiously romances a scullery maid to gain access to her mistress with whom he is in love, but doesn't count on the maid falling in love with him.
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Rich Man, Poor Girl
Title: Rich Man, Poor Girl
Character: Sally Harrison
Released: August 12, 1938
Type: Movie
A millionaire courts a working-class woman.
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Smashing the Rackets
Title: Smashing the Rackets
Character: Leticia "Letty" Lane
Released: August 8, 1938
Type: Movie
Jim 'Socker' Conway, former boxer and FBI hero, is maneuvered for political reasons into a do-nothing job in the district attorney's office. Meanwhile, he meets wild debutante Letty Lane, girlfriend of mob mouthpiece Steve Lawrence; and Letty's much nicer sister Susan. Now the slot machine gang brutally beats Jim's friends Franz and Otto. And Jim finds a way to use his nominal position to go into the racket- busting business. But his success puts Letty in deadly peril...
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Letter of Introduction
Title: Letter of Introduction
Character: Honey
Released: August 5, 1938
Type: Movie
An aging actor, trying to make a comeback on Broadway, is surprised when his estranged daughter shows up. It seems that she is an actress and is also trying to make it on Broadway. He tries to re-establish his relationship with her while also trying to hide the fact that she is his daughter from the press.
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Man-Proof
Title: Man-Proof
Character: Florence (dialogue scenes deleted)
Released: January 7, 1938
Type: Movie
A newspaper illustrator tries to remain best friends with the man she secretly loves, even though he recently married another woman.
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My Dear Miss Aldrich
Title: My Dear Miss Aldrich
Character: Ellen Warfield
Released: September 17, 1937
Type: Movie
A young woman inherits a newspaper whose editor refuses to hire lady reporters.
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London by Night
Title: London by Night
Character: Patricia Herrick
Released: July 30, 1937
Type: Movie
A newspaperman, his canine companion, and an adventurous socialite investigate an umbrella-wielding murderer who is terrorizing a London neighborhood.