1930's actress talks movies

By Nathan Mayberg
How many actors or actresses can say they were in six films nominated for the best picture Academy Award between 1930 and 1940?

Just one. Marilyn Knowlden.
The former child actress, who just turned 89, has a vivid memory of those years.

With the recent passing of Hollywood legends Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple, Knowlden is one of the last links to pre-war Hollywood where everything seemed possible and dreams were captured for eternity.

Knowlden in movies alongside Hollywood royalty like Katherine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Fredric March, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, W.C. Fields, Tyrone Power, Wallace Beery and Norma Shearer.

She played the roles of children in the Academy Award winning “Little Women” and the Oscar-nominated films “Les Miserables,” “David Copperfield” “Imitation of Life,” “Anthony Adverse” and “All this and Heaven too.”

Her career began at 4 when she went to Hollywood though it got off to a rocky start.

A passenger in a car driven by her dad, she escaped serious injury in an accident on the Hollywood lot. She was helped by Dolores Costello, silent screen siren, the wife of John Barrymore and grandmother of Drew Barrymore.

“She brought me into the dressing room and took care of me,” Knowlden recalled.

“Talk about a Hollywood situation.”

Marilyn suffered a scrape and a bump on her forehead. Her mother broke three ribs and a collarbone.

Nonetheless, her dad “fell in love with Hollywood” and left his career as an attorney to work as her agent.

One of her earliest memories is watching the Marx Brothers make a movie. She remembers being introdued to the brothers and Chico playing the piano for her.

“It was a very innocent time,” she said.

“Like a kid being in the talent show.”

Knowlden spent time at MGM’s one-room “Little Red Schoolhouse,” where Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney were studying. The two were older than her and she didn’t get to know them.

“They were just anxious to get out of school,” she said.

Her book “Little Girl in Big Pictures” captures her time in show business.

At the age of five, she acted in “Susan Lenox,” a 1931 movie with Clark Gable and Greta Garbo but her scenes were cut.

Garbo, an internationl star, introduced her to Gable.

“He looked like my father. He had big ears,” she recalled.

Garbo said “Italy is shaped like a boot.”

Two years later Marilyn had a role in “Little Women.” She made an impression on director George Cukor.

“The important thing was I met George Cukor. He liked me,” Knowlden said.

Cukor cast her in the 1935 classic “David Copperfield."

“Little Women” featured two great actresses in Katherine Hepburn and Joan Bennett.

Bennett read a book to Knowlden off-set.

“She was very pleasant. A very nice lady.”

“Little Women” was the first of three pairings between Knowlden and Hepburn. The others were “Morning Glory” (!933) and “A Woman Rebels” (1936).

In “A Woman Rebels,” Knowlden played Hepburn’s illegitimate daughter.

“I thought she was my aunt,” Knowlden joked.

After that, eight-year-old Knowlden played Claudette Colbert’s graceful daughter in “Imitation of Life.”

“She was so nice,” Knowlden said.

Knowlden said Colbert had a “certain independence” and “liveliness” about her.

She remembers looking in the mirror together with Colbert, and laughing.

“She had a lot of spunk,” Knowlden said.

Years later, Knowlden went to visit Colbert when she was acting on stage. Colbert asked about her mother.

In “David Copperfield,” Knowlden played the role of young Freddie Bartholemew’s future love interest.

She enters the film playing a piano.

“I pleaded with my mother to teach me,” Knowlden said. Marilyn learned on a grand piano that somebody had left in her family’s apartment.

A doll was made in her image after the movie.

Les Miserables
Her most memorable role was in “Les Miserables" as the young Cosette in an emotional sequence.

Knowlden adored the film's lead actor Fredric March.

“He was so good to me,” Knowlden said.

“He had a girl my age…we had fun.”

“I called him papa.”
Director Richard Boleslawski “helped me more than any other director” Knowlden said.

Off screen, she danced with Charles Laughton, who played the brooding Inspector Javert.

“He wore these hip length boots,” Knowlden recalled.

“I had wooden shoes on… I taught him a wooden shoe dance,” she said.

“He was very cute with me,” she said.

In “Rainbow in the River”, the star was Bobby Breen.

“We had a crush on each other,” she recalled. .

The 10-year-old Marilyn turned away when the 9-year-old tried to kiss her in the dressing room.

They spoke again a few years ago.

“You rejected me,” he told her. She sent him her book where she acknowledged being attracted to him.

She later was kissed by Norma Shearer, the Queen of MGM, who played her mom in “Marie Antoinette” (1938).

Shearer's soaring performance as Antoinette earned her an Academy Award nomination.

“I could never figure out how she was able to cry so easily,” Knowlden said.

Knowlden later learned that Shearer’s real life husband, MGM boss Irving Thalberg, had recently died.

“She was mourning his death.”
She has an autographed picture from Shearer in her scrapbook with the inscription “to remind you of the good old days at Versailles.”

“She was a darling with us,” Knowlden said.

At lunch, Shearer would bring a surprise, Knowlden recalled. Once, she gave Knowlden a bracelet.

“We loved her,” she said.
She acted in two films with Shirley Temple, whom she called a “serious actress.”

She left college early to marry a military man.

She followed him on tours to Asia, helping in the rebuilding effort. “It was a marvelous experience,” she said.

They divorced but raised 3 children and a foster chiild.

“I was fortunate for the quality of the films I was in.”

Knowlden doesn't regret not returning to Hollywood after marriage.

“I think it was great just living a normal life.”

“I had wonderful experiences,” Knowlden said.

“I was truly blessed.”
She is proud of the musicals she wrote, sang and acted in at playhouses, including writing songs for a version of Alice in Wonderland. She enjoys playing the piano and singing in the choir of her retirement home.

“I am very lucky that I got my shows produced,” she said.

She treasures a lifetime achievement award she received at the 2010 Cinecon Classic Movies Festival.

During the interview, Knowlden breaks out into song.

“Stage mothers,” Knowlden sings.

“In all of my bad dreams, I fight off the schemes,” she belts in fine tune.

“I love to sing,” she says.