Pauline Cynthia Wagner (August 18, 1910 – May 2, 2014) was an American actress, dancer and glamour girl who had minor roles in the 1930s and 1940s. She made her debut in ''

King of Jazz King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a constitutional monarch if his power is restrained by ...

'' in 1930. She was also a founding member of the

Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...

. Her first significant role was in ''

College Lovers ''College Lovers'' is a 1930 American talkie Pre-Code comedy film produced and released by First National Pictures, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., and directed by John G. Adolfi. The movie stars Jack Whiting, Marian Nixon, Frank McHugh and Guin ...

'' where she played Frank's girlfriend. She was

Fay Wray Vina Fay Wray (September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004) was a Canadian-American actress best known for starring as Ann Darrow in the 1933 film ''King Kong''. Through an acting career that spanned nearly six decades, Wray attained international r ...

's understudy in ''

King Kong King Kong, also referred to simply as Kong, is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. The character has since become an international pop culture icon,Erb, Cynthia, 1998, ''Tracking Kin ...

'' in 1933. She had small parts in '' Lady Killer'' and ''

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' is a 1936 American comedy-drama romance film directed by Frank Capra and starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur in her first featured role. Based on the 1935 short story "Opera Hat" by Clarence Budington Kelland, whi ...

''. She worked for

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

and

RKO RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Kei ...

. Her film career ended in 1941.

Personal life and death

Wagner, who had resided in

Glendale, California Glendale is a city located primarily in the Verdugo Mountains region, with a small portion in the San Fernando Valley, of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located about north of downtown Los Angeles. As of 2024, Glendale ha ...

, after retiring opened a baby store and wrote a book, she was married to Alfred J. McCourtney and died on May 2, 2014, aged 103. She was also married to assistant film director Mike Lally. They had a daughter, who died of an illness when she was seven weeks old.

References

External links

*
Pauline Wagner
at the

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the History of cinema in the United States, motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private fu ...

Fay Wray's Stunt Double Remembers the Big Ape
NBC Los Angeles interview with Pauline Wagner 1910 births 2014 deaths Actresses from Oklahoma American film actresses Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract players People from La Crescenta-Montrose, California American women centenarians 21st-century American women {{US-film-actor-1910s-stub