Saturday, July 11, 2015

Geneva Mitchell

Geneva Mitchell was in some of the comedy films of the thirties. And during the same period she gave testimony in court about the activities of some of the gangsters in Hollywood.

Geneva Mitchell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Geneva Mitchell

Born	(1907-02-03)February 3, 1907 Medaryville, Indiana, USA
Died	March 10, 1949(1949-03-10) (aged 42) Los Angeles, California, USA
Years active	1929-1946

Geneva Mitchell (February 3, 1907 – March 10, 1949) was an American film actress. She appeared in over 70 films between 1929 and 1946.

Career

Mitchell started her career on the stage in a musical comedy, and was in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers in October 1929, and with Columbia Pictures in June 1934. Modern viewers will recognize Mitchell from her appearances in the Three Stooges 1935 films Restless Knights, Pop Goes the Easel, and particularly Hoi Polloi. In Hoi Polloi, Mitchell plays a dance instructor who directs the Stooges to "do exactly as I do." Before she begins her dance, a bumblebee lands on her bare back, and then crawls under her dress. She becomes alarmed. Naturally, the Stooges mimic her every startled move. This hilarious footage was to be reused six years later in In the Sweet Pie and Pie.

Death

Poor health curtailed Mitchell's career after 1936, as she appeared in only one film throughout the 1940s. She died in Los Angeles, California on March 10, 1949 at age 42.

Personal

Mitchell's circumstances often made the news. She impulsively married and quickly threw over a scion of the prominent industrial Savage family, was often seen with actor/director Lowell Sherman, and reported her brother as having been kidnapped by gangsters. She became entangled in legal wranglings involving Sherman's estate, and her publicist was sentenced to jail over a stunt she reportedly instigated.^{[citation needed]}

Selected filmography

Andy Plays Hookey (1946)
The Cattle Thief (1936)
The Crime Patrol (1936)
Lawless Riders (1935)
Honeymoon Bridge (1935)
She Married Her Boss (1935)
It Always Happens (1935)
Hoi Polloi (1935)
Pop Goes the Easel (1935)
His Bridal Sweet (1935)
Restless Knights (1935)
The Captain Hates the Sea (1934)
Springtime for Henry (1934)
The Hell Cat (1934)
I Am Suzanne (1933)
The Girl From Calgary (1932)
The Devil Is Driving (1932)
Working Girls (1931)
The Doctor's Wife (1930)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Geneva Mitchell.

Geneva Mitchell at the Internet Broadway Database
Geneva Mitchell at the Internet Movie Database
Geneva Mitchell at AllMovie
Glamor Girls of the Silver Screen

Reblogged from http://www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com/show/689/Geneva+Mitchell/index.html

18 June 32

Renewed activity of racketeer-kidnapers directed against residents of the motion picture colony were revealed today by her. She notified police she believed her brother, Clifford R. Mitchell, 23, had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. She said her brother had disappeared mysteriously last Saturday, and that he had telephoned Monday two days after his disappearance that he was being held captive and would be killed unless she paid money for his release. "My brother told me that he had no money and that he was being held captive and would be "taken for a ride" until I gave his kidnapers some cash. He didn't name any amount. That's the last I heard from him or of him." Some of her friends said they had received anonymous telephone calls with the information that Mitchell would be released when his ransom was paid.

* * *

Kidnapping was in the news that year as the son of Lindbergh had been kidnapped. A number of movie stars received kidnap threats in the thirties. Thelma Todd and Mae West were both the recipients of kidnap threats that were said to have been the work of lone individuals rather than members of a gang. Bebe Daniels and her family went to live in England to escape this menace.

* * *

But it is her career in show business for which Geneva Mitchell is remembered today.

With Ziegfield, 1921