Mitzi Green (born Elizabeth Keno; October 22, 1920 – May 24, 1969)
[ was an American actress and singer known for her work as a child actress for ]Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS.
**Paramount Picture ...
and RKO, in the early "talkies" era. She then acted on Broadway and in other stage works, as well as in films and on television.
Early years
Mitzi Green was born in The Bronx on October 22, 1920 to a Jewish family. Starting at the age 3, she began appearing in her parents' vaudeville act under the name ''Little Mitzi''.
Career
Green was often featured in Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS.
**Paramount Picture ...
's early talkies, as an outspoken and mischievous little girl alongside studio stars Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow (; July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the ...
, Jack Oakie, Ed Wynn
Isaiah Edwin Leopold (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966), better known as Ed Wynn, was an American actor and comedian. He began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was known for his ''Perfect Fool'' comedy character, his pioneering radio show ...
, Leon Errol
Leon Errol (born Leonce Errol Sims, July 3, 1881 – October 12, 1951) was an Australian-American comedian and actor in the United States, popular in the first half of the 20th century for his appearances in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in film ...
, and Edna May Oliver
Edna May Oliver (born Edna May Nutter, November 9, 1883 – November 9, 1942) was an American stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the better-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters. ...
among others. Green was a gifted mimic and her celebrity imitations were often worked into the films. She was cast (against type) opposite Jackie Coogan
John Leslie Coogan (October 26, 1914 – March 1, 1984) was an American actor and comedian who began his film career as a child actor in silent films. Coogan's role in Charlie Chaplin's film ''The Kid (1921 film), The Kid'' (1921) made him one o ...
in two Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...
adaptations, '' Tom Sawyer'' (1930) and ''Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, '' Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884). He is 12 ...
'' (1931). Paramount released her in 1931, as she was rapidly outgrowing child roles.
She moved to RKO for two pictures, both adaptations of works from other media. She played the title role in ''Little Orphan Annie
''Little Orphan Annie'' was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and print syndication#Comic strip syndication, syndicated by the Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James ...
'' (1932), based on the popular comic strip, with Edgar Kennedy
Edgar Livingston Kennedy (April 26, 1890 – November 9, 1948) was an American comedic character actor who appeared in at least 500 films during the silent and sound eras. Professionally, he was known as "Slow Burn", owing to his ability to por ...
as Daddy Warbucks
Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks is a fictional business mogul character from the comic strip ''Little Orphan Annie''. He made his first appearance in the ''New York Daily News'' in the ''Annie'' strip on September 27, 1924. In the series, he is said to b ...
. She also appeared as the precocious kid sister in ''Girl Crazy
''Girl Crazy'' is a 1930 musical by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book by Guy Bolton and John McGowan. Co-leads Ginger Rogers and Ethel Merman made their stage debuts in the first production and Rogers became an overnight sta ...
'' (1932), the first movie version of the George Gershwin
George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular music, popular and classical music. Among his best-known works are the songs "Swan ...
-Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin (born Israel Gershovitz; December 6, 1896 – August 17, 1983) was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the ...
stage musical. Green brightened the film with surprising impersonations of George Arliss
George Arliss (born Augustus George Andrews; 10 April 1868 – 5 February 1946) was an English actor, author, playwright, and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award – which he ...
and her former co-star Edna May Oliver.
At the age of 14, she played a soubrette
A soubrette is a female minor stock character in opera and theatre, often a pert lady's maid. By extension, the term can refer generally to any saucy or flirtatious young woman. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means " ...
role in ''Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round'' (1934), produced independently by Edward Small for United Artists
United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...
release. It did not result in further film offers, and Green left Hollywood.
She went on to Broadway, where she starred in the original production of Rodgers and Hart's '' Babes in Arms'' (1937). Two of Green's numbers in the musical were " My Funny Valentine," which would later become a jazz standard in many cover recordings and performances, and " The Lady Is a Tramp".
Green made one more film in 1940 (''Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the ...
'' with Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian and American actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Oliv ...
), then went back to stage and nightclub work, including '' Walk with Music'' by Hoagy Carmichael
Hoagland Howard "Hoagy" Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor, author and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s and 1940s, a ...
and Johnny Mercer
John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Wallichs Music Cit ...
, and the Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Adolph Green (December 2, 1914 – October 23, 2002) was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for musicals on Broadway (theatre), Broadway and in Cinema of the Unite ...
musical '' Billion Dollar Baby''. Green married Broadway (and later movie and TV) director Joseph Pevney
Joseph Pevney (September 15, 1911 – May 18, 2008) was an American film and television director.
Biography
Born in New York City, Pevney made his debut in vaudeville as a boy soprano in 1924. Although he hated vaudeville, he loved the thea ...
and retired to raise a family. At age 31 she returned briefly to the screen opposite Abbott and Costello
Abbott and Costello were an American comedy duo composed of comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, whose work in radio, film, and television made them the most popular comedy team of the 1940s and 1950s, and the highest-paid entertainers in t ...
in '' Lost in Alaska'' (1952) and in '' Bloodhounds of Broadway'' (1952), co-starring another Mitzi—Mitzi Gaynor
Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber (September 4, 1931 – October 17, 2024), known professionally as Mitzi Gaynor, was an American actress, singer, and dancer. Her notable films included ''We're Not Married!'' (1952), ''There's No Business ...
.
In 1955, she starred with Virginia Gibson and Gordon Jones in the short-lived NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
TV sitcom ''So This Is Hollywood'', in the role of Queenie Dugan, a high-spirited stuntwoman.
After a brief stint on the nightclub circuit, Green retired again, although she did appear in summer stock
In American theater, summer stock theater is a theater that presents stage productions only in the summer. The name combines the season with the tradition of staging shows by a resident company, reusing stock scenery and costumes. Summer stock ...
and dinner theater
Dinner theater (sometimes called dinner and a show) is a form of entertainment that combines a restaurant meal with a staged play or musical. In the case of a theatrical performance, sometimes the play is incidental entertainment, secondary to th ...
around the Los Angeles area thereafter, and she appeared occasionally as a guest on talk shows.
On radio, Green starred in '' Passport to Romance'', a program "spiced with music and comedy", which premiered on the Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Golden Age of Radio, ...
on April 5, 1946.
Recognition
For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Green received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a landmark which consists of 2,813 five-pointed terrazzo-and-brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in the Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood dist ...
at 6430 Hollywood Blvd.
Death
On May 24, 1969, Green died in Huntington Beach, California, at age 48, of cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...
.
Partial filmography
Stage
* '' Babes in Arms'' (1937)
* '' Walk with Music'' (1940)
* '' Let Freedom Sing'' (1942)
* '' Billion Dollar Baby'' (1945)
Bibliography
* Best, Marc. ''Those Endearing Young Charms: Child Performers of the Screen'' (South Brunswick and New York: Barnes & Co., 1971), pp. 100–104.
References
External links
*
*
Photographs of Mitzi Green and bibliography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Green, Mitzi
1920 births
1969 deaths
American child actresses
American film actresses
American musical theatre actresses
American television actresses
Actresses from the Bronx
Burials at Eden Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Paramount Pictures contract players
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers