Alma Margaret Reilly (June 16, 1900 – December 21, 1939), known professionally as Margaret Shelby, was an American stage and motion picture actress, daughter of actress

Charlotte Shelby Charlotte Shelby (born Lily Pearl Miles; December 19, 1877 – March 13, 1957) was an American actress. She was popular in Broadway theatre in her youth and was long noted as a suspect in the murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor. ...

, older sister of

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

star

Mary Miles Minter Mary Miles Minter (born Juliet Reilly; April 25, 1902Louisiana Birth Certificate, Caddo Parish, No. 119, Book A, Page 97, Birth Date: April 25, 1902, Name: Mary M. Reilly ic – Original Caddo birth record was recorded as "J.H. Riley's Child" ...

, and one of many public figures noted in the scandals which followed the murder of

William Desmond Taylor William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner, 26 April 1872 – 1 February 1922) was an Anglo-Irish-American film director and actor. A popular figure in the growing Hollywood motion picture colony of the 1910s and early 1920s, ...

in 1922.

Film career

Born Alma Margaret Reilly (and later also known as Alma M. Fillmore), Shelby was a child actress. Her first Broadway appearance was in Grace Livingston Furniss's play, ''The Fibber''. In 1916 Margaret and Mary, both in their teens, acted together on film in director James Kirkwood's picture ''Faith''. Although she was seen as prettyhttp://www.assumption.edu/acad/ii/Academic/history/His130/twenties/Taylor/MargaretShelby1920.jpg and noted for having some talent as an actress, her film career was limited to supporting roles in some of her sister's films. By 1916, both sisters were quite famous and established a widely-publicized "hotel" for stray dogs on the ample grounds of their Santa Barbara, California home. Her sister left the film industry in 1924, and Margaret took small bit parts in sundry productions.

Personal life

She was briefly married to Hugh Fillmore, but they divorced in 1927. With the coming of sound films in the late 1920s, her career ended. By the late 1930s, Shelby was suffering from both alcoholism and clinical depression. In March 1937, she eloped to Yuma, Arizona with Emmett J. Flynn, but this marriage was annulled two months later. On June 5, 1937 Shelby filed a lawsuit against her mother alleging financial mismanagement, claiming Charlotte had stolen $48,750 (roughly almost $2 million in 2007 inflation-adjusted terms) from a safety deposit box in a Los Angeles, California bank. A jury awarded her $20,000. On September 13, 1938, she publicly accused her mother of having killed

in 1922. Shelby's sister had an unrequited infatuation with Taylor, beginning in 1919.

Death

Margaret Shelby died following a long illness in 1939, aged 39.

Filmography

References

Notes

Bibliography

Janesville, Wisconsin Janesville is a city in Rock County, Wisconsin, United States. It is the county seat and largest city in the county. It is a principal municipality of the Janesville, Wisconsin, Metropolitan Statistical Area and is included in the Madison–Jan ...

Daily Gazette, ''News Notes From Movieland'', October 23, 1916, Page 6. *

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

, ''Film Slaying Witness Dies'', December 23, 1939, Page 1.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shelby, Margaret 1900 births 1939 deaths American stage actresses American silent film actresses 20th-century American actresses American film actresses