Linda Darnell, Texas Movie Star. (original) (raw)

The brief but brilliant life of actress Linda Darnell began in Dallas on October 16, 1923, and ended sadly in a hospital in Chicago, Illinois, forty-two years later on April 19, 1965.

Born Monetta Eloyse Darnell, Hollywood changed her to simply Linda Darnell, apparently judging her legal family name sufficiently glamorous but also needing to do away with the more complicated given names.

Darnell grew up in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas and attended Sunset High School. The precocious young lady who looked far more mature than her actual years won numerous talent contests, worked as a "Texanite" during the Centennial celebration at Fair Park in 1936 at thirteen years of age, modeled for Southwestern Style Shows, and won the regional Gateway to Hollywood contest in 1938 when she was only fifteen years of age.

At sixteen, she was on her way to a screen test and film stardom in Hollywood at the invitation of talent scout Ivan Kahn, which led to a contract with Darryl Zanuck at Twentieth-Century Fox. Her first assignment, in 1939, was "Hotel For Women." For the next thirteen years Darnell appeared in a series of films, often opposite actor Tyrone Power, who was several years older. For a decade or more Darnell�s roles usually made her appear older and more sophisticated than was the case.

As the years passed, Darnell�s actual age caught up with her screen persona, and the baggage of Hollywood, including three failed marriages, accumulated. In 1944, Look magazine named her one of the four most beautiful actresses in Hollywood, and for nearly a decade she was also one of the actresses most in demand for films.

Perhaps her most significant role was in "Forever Amber" (1947), co-starring Cornel Wilde, which was considered daring and risqu� at the time. Darnell played a memorable role in "Letter To Three Wives" (1948), co-starring Paul Douglas, Kirk Douglas, and Ann Sothern. Darnell�s role could have been drawn from her actual life because her character used her beauty to climb the social ladder in a small town.

Darnell was married three times, though each marriage ended in divorce. She remained professionally active after her first and second studio contracts with Twentieth-Century Fox and RKO expired, appearing in plays, television dramas, and nightclubs. Darnell was burned severely when fire engulfed a home she was visiting in Glenville, Illinois. She died a few days later in a hospital in Chicago.