8-17-14 Muriel Evans, born Muriel Adele Evanson July 20, 1910, was an American film actress. She is best known for her many appearances in popular westerns of the 1930s for which she won a Golden Boot Award. While in high school, she spent her afternoons on film sets, where her mother worked as a maid, and was soon noticed by a studio executive. The executive introduced her to the director Robert Z. Leonard, who gave her a small role in the 1926 film, Mademoiselle Modiste. She continued attending classes at Hollywood High School and landing bit parts in stock theater productions and silent films. In 1929, shortly after completing Joyland, she put her acting career on hold to finish school. In July 1929, she was married. She gave up her career upon her marriage. She and her husband traveled the world and settled in Paris. In 1930, they returned to the United States, and she filed for divorce. She returned to Hollywood, signed a contract at MGM and began making films again. In 1932, she starred in six films, most notably, Young Ironsides and Pack Up Your Troubles with Laurel and Hardy. She would go on to star in eight more shorts before 1940. Her success was due in large part to her pleasant speaking voice. She made a smooth transition from silent pictures to talkies, and throughout the 1930s, she continued to work steadily. She appeared in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Manhattan Melodrama with Clark Gable and William Powell, and The Prizefighter and the Lady with Myrna Loy. By the mid-1930s, she also began co-starring in popular westerns alongside Tom Mix, John Wayne and Tex Ritter. She also starred in three Hopalong Cassidy films. By age 30, she retired from acting. In 1971, she began work as a volunteer nurse at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills. After a stroke in 1994, she became a resident within the complex and often dined with fellow actors with whom she had once worked. In 1999, she made her last film appearance in a 2000 documentary, I Used to Be in Pictures, in which she was one of many former actors who recalled their experiences in the film work. She died on October 26, 2000, in Woodland Hills, California. She was 90 years of age.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 18:28:32 +0000
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