Marguerite Churchill

Marguerite Churchill

Born: December 26, 1910
Died: January 9, 2000
in Kansas City, Missouri, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marguerite Churchill (December 26, 1910 – January 9, 2000) was an American film actress appearing in more than 25 films with a career spanning from 1929 to 1952. She is best known today as John Wayne's first leading lady, in The Big Trail (1930).

She was the daughter of a producer who owned a chain of theaters, but he died when she was ten years old. She was educated in New York City at the Professional Children's School and the Theatre Guild Dramatic School. She appeared on stage and was applauded on Broadway as a leading lady when just sixteen years old. An official of the Fox Company saw her acting and gave her a contract which shortly afterwards led her to debut on screen in The Diplomats.

Churchill played leading lady to John Wayne in Howard Hawk's The Big Trail (1930), an early widescreen epic and Wayne's first leading role. She appeared with Wayne the following year in Girls Demand Excitement (1931), with Spencer Tracy and George Raft in Quick Millions (1931), with Will Rogers in Ambassador Bill (1931), with Warner Oland in Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), with George O'Brien in Riders of the Purple Sage (1931), with Charles Farrell in Girl Without a Room (1933), with Ralph Bellamy in The Final Hour (1936), with Boris Karloff in The Walking Dead (1936), and with Edward Van Sloan in Dracula's Daughter (1936).

She died on January 9, 2000, aged 89, from natural causes in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. She was survived by her daughter, Orin.

Movies for Marguerite Churchill...

Bunco Squad
Title: Bunco Squad
Character: Barbara Madison
Released: September 1, 1950
Type: Movie
Police sergeants Johnson and McManus take on Los Angeles confidence tricksters. Con man Tony Wells, lining up rich widow Jessica Royce as his latest mark, sets up a false paranormal society with other charlatans to convince the credulous Jessica that her late son is speaking to her through their sham seances. When the plan leads to murder, Johnson and McManus must bring the group down before they kill again.
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Title: Fireside Theater
Released: April 5, 1949
Type: TV
Fireside Theater is an American anthology drama series that ran on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Stories were low budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned by critics, it remained in the top ten most popular shows for most of its run. It predated the other major pioneer of filmed TV in America, I Love Lucy, by two years.
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Legion of Terror
Title: Legion of Terror
Character: Nancy Foster
Released: November 1, 1936
Type: Movie
Two newly-appointed postal inspectors, Frank Marshall and 'Slim" Hewitt, set out to track down the sender of a time-bomb to a U. S. Senator and, during their investigation, run across a hooded organization that is terrorizing an American city. They also meet Don Foster, who is loud in his condemnation of the terrorists, and his sister, Nancy, who fears for her brother's life.
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Alibi for Murder
Title: Alibi for Murder
Character: Lois Allen
Released: September 23, 1936
Type: Movie
A radio commentator named Perry Travis fancies himself a brilliant amateur detective. The cops wish he’d stick to his microphone and let them do the detecting. This proves impossible when a famed scientist is murdered in Perry’s studio, right in the middle of the interview. All evidence points to Perry, and he sets out to clear his name before the Shadow-like villain roaming the hallways of the radio station gets away with murder.
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The Final Hour
Title: The Final Hour
Character: Flo Russell
Released: July 7, 1936
Type: Movie
A down-and-out lawyer gets back on his feet with help from a singer who later retains him to defend her on a murder charge.
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Murder by an Aristocrat
Title: Murder by an Aristocrat
Character: Nurse Sally Keating
Released: June 13, 1936
Type: Movie
A wealthy family is blackmailed. Murder results. And a nurse at the scene of the crime is determined to figure out who-done-it.
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Dracula's Daughter
Title: Dracula's Daughter
Character: Janet
Released: May 11, 1936
Type: Movie
A countess from Transylvania seeks a psychiatrist’s help to cure her vampiric cravings.
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The Walking Dead
Title: The Walking Dead
Character: Nancy
Released: March 1, 1936
Type: Movie
Down-on-his-luck John Ellman is framed for a judge's murder. After he's convicted and sentenced to death, witnesses come forth and prove his innocence. But it was too late for a stay to be granted and Ellman is executed. A doctor uses an experimental procedure to restore him to life, though the full outcome is other than expected.
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Man Hunt
Title: Man Hunt
Character: Jane Carpenter
Released: January 29, 1936
Type: Movie
A bored small-town teacher gets mixed up with an escaped bank robber.
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Speed Devils
Title: Speed Devils
Character: Pat Corey
Released: July 1, 1935
Type: Movie
A race car driver, injured during an accident, opens up a repair shop only to become the target of crooked government agents.
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Without Children
Title: Without Children
Character: Sue Cole
Released: April 15, 1935
Type: Movie
Struggling architect David Cole is encouraged by his boss, Phil Graham, to fraternize with high society as a means of drumming up business. This inadvertently leads to him having an affair with a rich older woman. When his wife Sue discovers the infidelity, she divorces him and takes away their two children. It turns out this was Phil's intent all along - so he could marry Sue. With David now living in Europe, the two children grow up spoiled and self-centered under Phil and Sue's neglectful care. When one of them is shot while roughhousing, David realizes he must own up to his responsibilities as a father...but it may be too late to make a difference in his children's lives...
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Girl without a Room
Title: Girl without a Room
Character: Kay Loring
Released: December 8, 1933
Type: Movie
In this comedy, a Tennessee art school student wins a scholarship to paint in Paris. He is thrilled until he arrives and discovers that his style is hopelessly passe and is considered trashy. The enterprising artist immediately changes style and begins painting highly-abstract moderns.
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Forgotten Commandments
Title: Forgotten Commandments
Character: Marya Ossipoff
Released: May 22, 1932
Type: Movie
A framework story serves as context for a retelling of the Exodus story and, most importantly, a recycling of footage from the silent version of The Ten Commandments.
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Ambassador Bill
Title: Ambassador Bill
Character: Queen Vanya
Released: November 13, 1931
Type: Movie
An American ambassador arrives in a small country that is being convulsed by political intrigue and civil unrest. He befriends the young boy who is to be the country's king, to ensure that the boy is prepared to take on the role and also to see that he lives long enough to assume the crown.
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Riders of the Purple Sage
Title: Riders of the Purple Sage
Character: Jane Withersteen
Released: October 22, 1931
Type: Movie
Lassiter's sister was killed and her young daughter taken and raised by outlaws. Years later Lassiter arrives at the Withersteen ranch looking for the now grown daughter. He immediately gets caught up in the ranch's struggle against rustlers. Trailing a rustled herd of horses leads him to the rustler's hideout and the missing daughter.
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Quick Millions
Title: Quick Millions
Character: Dorothy Stone
Released: April 17, 1931
Type: Movie
A truck driver "too lazy to work and too nervous to steal" gets mixed up in racketeering. Naturally his underhanded business practices make him a pillar of the community.
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Charlie Chan Carries On
Title: Charlie Chan Carries On
Character: Pamela Potter
Released: April 11, 1931
Type: Movie
Charlie steps in to solve the murder of a wealthy American found dead in a London hotel. Settings include London, Nice, San Remo, Honolulu and Hong Kong. Fast-paced with lots of wisecracking. The first film to star Warner Oland as Charlie Chan.
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Girls Demand Excitement
Title: Girls Demand Excitement
Character: Miriam
Released: February 8, 1931
Type: Movie
Peter Brooks is a hard-working, hard-up college student whose dislike of women attending college weakens under the amorous advances of spoiled socialite coed Joan Madison.
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The Big Trail
Title: The Big Trail
Character: Ruth Cameron
Released: November 1, 1930
Type: Movie
Young scout Breck Coleman leads a wagon train along the dangerous trail to Oregon as he tries to get the affection of the beautiful pioneer Ruth Cameron and plans his revenge on the harsh scoundrels who murdered a friend of his in the past.
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Good Intentions
Title: Good Intentions
Character: Helen Rankin
Released: June 29, 1930
Type: Movie
When love came the way of this gentleman crook he turned to the right---only to be caught in the swirling eddy of his criminal past! (original ad)
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Born Reckless
Title: Born Reckless
Character: Rosa Beretti
Released: May 11, 1930
Type: Movie
In order to use the publicity to get re-elected, a judge sentences a notorious gangster to fight in the war.
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Harmony at Home
Title: Harmony at Home
Character: Louise Haller
Released: January 12, 1930
Type: Movie
This comedy story of Joe Haller unwittingly running a sweatshop and Mama Haller keeping the suitors away from her daughters by discussing marriage.
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Seven Faces
Title: Seven Faces
Character: Hélène Berthelot
Released: December 1, 1929
Type: Movie
A 1929 American pre-Code drama film with fantasy elements that was released by Fox Film Corporation in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system on December 1, 1929.
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They Had to See Paris
Title: They Had to See Paris
Character: Opal Peters
Released: September 18, 1929
Type: Movie
Oklahoma mechanic Pike Peters finds himself part owner of an oil field. His wife Idy, hitherto content, decides the family must go to Paris to get "culture" and meet "the right kind of people." Pike and his grown son and daughter soon have flirtatious French admirers; Idy rents a chateau from an impoverished aristocrat; while Pike responds to each new development with homespun wit. In the inevitable clash, will pretentiousness and sophistication or common sense triumph?
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The Valiant
Title: The Valiant
Character: Mary Douglas
Released: May 19, 1929
Type: Movie
A man condemned to execution tries to convince two women that he is not their son and brother, and that they must get on with their lives.
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Furnace Trouble
Title: Furnace Trouble
Released: February 4, 1929
Type: Movie
Furnace Trouble is a 1929 comedy short.