Connie Marshall

Connie Marshall

Born: April 28, 1933
Died: May 22, 2001
in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
A promising blue-to-gray-eyed, blonde-haired child actress of the post-WWII years who had more talent than she was given credit for, little Connie Marshall was born on April 28, 1933 in New York City. Her parents were not of show business stock, her father being a lieutenant with the Allied Military Government in Europe. She was a direct descent of this country's first Chief Justice, John Marshall, and was also a descendant of Geradus Beekamn, who was the first colonial governor of New York.

A strikingly sensitive-looking tyke with sad, beady eyes, she broke into the competitive side of show business quite young (age 5) as a pig-tailed model for commercial newspapers and magazines. Frequently used by New York photographers, artists and caricaturists, she began her acting career a year later quite by happenstance. A failed screen test taken in Hollywood was, by luck, seen by 20th Century-Fox director Lloyd Bacon who just happened to be casting the role of little Mary Osborne in the warm family comedy-drama Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944). The film went on to star the future husband and wife team of Anne Baxter and John Hodiak, who first met and fell in love while shooting this picture. Director Bacon stopped looking when he came across Connie.

Educated at the Gardner School in New York, where she appeared in a few plays, and the Fox Studio School, Connie also studied ballet and ballroom dancing. She made a strong impression in her very first film, with a natural forlorn ease as one of the Osborne children that also included up-and-coming Bobby Driscoll. With Connie's second picture Sentimental Journey (1946), she was handed her best weepy-eyed showcase. Fatally ill actress Maureen O'Hara adopts an orphan girl (Connie) so her Broadway producer husband John Payne will have someone to care for after she passes away. The treacly plot follows the difficult adjustment between the grief-stricken two who are left behind, but eventually guided together by O'Hara's spirit. The pathetic storyline was a bit much but Connie held her own beautifully and received rave reviews.

Connie continued to show precocious promise in the post-war years in both sentimental drama and lightweight comedy with Dragonwyck (1946) as the daughter of Vincent Price; Home, Sweet Homicide (1946) as an amateur young sleuth who tries to solve a neighborhood murder aided by brother and sister Peggy Ann Garner and Dean Stockwell; Mother Wore Tights (1947) as the daughter of song-and-dance team Betty Grable and Dan Dailey; and the noted comedy classic Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) as one of the Blandings offspring of Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. These subsequent film roles, however, didn't match in importance when compared to her first two films.

Connie was to work with the silver screen's top movie stars over the years, including Gene Tierney and Joan Crawford, but once she outgrew her precociousness, her career began to fade away. She attempted TV with the short-lived series "Doc Corkle" (1952) and appeared as a feisty teen co-star opposite Gene Autry in his film oater Saginaw Trail (1953), but by 1954, after an un-billed part in Rogue Cop (1954), Connie was literally and figuratively out of the picture.

Movies for Connie Marshall...

Rogue Cop
Title: Rogue Cop
Character: Frances (uncredited)
Released: September 17, 1954
Type: Movie
A police detective on the take tries to catch his brother's killer.
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Saginaw Trail
Title: Saginaw Trail
Character: Flora Tourney
Released: September 20, 1953
Type: Movie
Hamilton's Rangers, led by our hero Gene, must keep the Indians in the northern Michigan territory from attacking the settlers.
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The Twonky
Title: The Twonky
Character: Cheerleader, at Kerry's house with football players
Released: June 10, 1953
Type: Movie
A college professor, left alone by his wife for the weekend, discovers his new TV set is not only alive, but determined to take control of his entire life.
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Title: Doc Corkle
Character: Laurie Corkle
Released: October 5, 1952
Type: TV
Doc Corkle is an American Television sitcom that was broadcast on NBC on Sunday nights for three weeks from October 5 to October 19, 1952. The show's sponsor, Reynolds Metals, was so disappointed with the program that it was canceled and replaced by Mr. Peepers.
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Kill the Umpire
Title: Kill the Umpire
Character: Suzie Johnson
Released: April 27, 1950
Type: Movie
Ex-baseball player Bill Johnson, failing at many jobs when his ball-playing days are over, reluctantly takes the advice of his father-in-law, Jonah Evans, a retired umpire, and enters an umpire-training school. Assigned to the Texas League, he does fine until the championship play-offs when a riot develops over one of his calls. The involved player is knocked unconscious in the proceedings and cannot verify that Bill made the correct call. Despite lynch mob plans to at least tar-and-feather him, Bill's family - his daughters Lucy (Gloria Henry and Susan and his wife Betty - help Bill reach the ballpark safely the next day through a series of hair-raising encounters.
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The Green Promise
Title: The Green Promise
Character: Abigail Matthews
Released: March 22, 1949
Type: Movie
A stubborn farmer is raising his children alone. When his oldest daughter gets a suitor, the father nearly goes on the rampage, but he is forced to change his tune when he is injured, leaving her in charge of the farm.
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Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Title: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Character: Betsy Blandings
Released: March 25, 1948
Type: Movie
An advertising executive dreams of getting out of the city and building a perfect home in the country, only to find the transition fraught with problems.
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Daisy Kenyon
Title: Daisy Kenyon
Character: Marie O'Mara
Released: December 25, 1947
Type: Movie
Daisy Kenyon is a Manhattan commercial artist having an affair with an arrogant and overbearing but successful lawyer and family man named Dan O'Mara. Daisy meets a single man, a war veteran named Peter Lapham, and after a brief and hesitant courtship decides to marry him, although she is still in love with Dan.
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Mother Wore Tights
Title: Mother Wore Tights
Character: Mikie
Released: August 20, 1947
Type: Movie
In this chronicle of a vaudeville family, Myrtle McKinley (class of 1900) goes to San Francisco to attend business school, but ends up in a chorus line. Soon, star Frank Burt notices her talent, hires her for a "two-act", then marries her. Incidents of the marriage and the growing pains of eldest daughter Miriam are followed, interspersed with nostalgic musical numbers.
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Wake Up and Dream
Title: Wake Up and Dream
Character: Nella Cairn
Released: December 2, 1946
Type: Movie
Aided by her eccentric friends, a young woman goes looking for her missing brother.
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Home Sweet Homicide
Title: Home Sweet Homicide
Character: April Carstairs
Released: October 2, 1946
Type: Movie
Mystery writer Marian Carstairs is hard at work trying to finish her latest novel. Her three children meanwhile are entertaining themselves by trying to solve a murder in their own neighborhood. In between gathering clues, the kids play matchmaker by trying to fix up their widowed mom with the handsome detective investigating the case.
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Dragonwyck
Title: Dragonwyck
Character: Katrine Van Ryn
Released: April 19, 1946
Type: Movie
For Miranda Wells, moving to New York to live in Dragonwyck Manor with her rich cousin, Nicholas, seems like a dream. However, the situation gradually becomes nightmarish. She observes Nicholas' troubled relationship with his tenant farmers, as well as with his daughter, to whom Miranda serves as governess. Her relationship with Nicholas intensifies after his wife dies, but his mental imbalance threatens any hope of happiness.
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Sentimental Journey
Title: Sentimental Journey
Character: Mehitabel 'Hitty' Weatherly
Released: March 6, 1946
Type: Movie
An actress becomes taken with Hitty, a young orphan prone to dreaming. Julie soon finds out that she is ill and has only a short time to live. She decides to adopt the child so that her husband Bill will not be alone when she dies. Unfortunately, Bill is not charmed by Hitty.
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Sunday Dinner for a Soldier
Title: Sunday Dinner for a Soldier
Character: Mary Osborne
Released: December 8, 1944
Type: Movie
A poor family in Florida saves all the money they can in order to plan something special for the soldier they've invited to Sunday dinner. They don't realize that their request to invite the soldier never got mailed. On the day of the scheduled dinner, another soldier is brought to their home and love soon blossoms between him and Tessa, the young woman who runs the home.