LINDA DARNELL

Linda Darnell was born Monetta Eloyse Darnell in Texas in 1923. Hers surely is one of the most amazing and tragic Hollywood stories ever! Most remember her as the exotic beauty of the late 1930s and early 1940s. But few know that she had "matured" super early and that her stage mother mom had her working as an adult model at age 11 (telling people she was 16). Her mom got her a Hollywood screen test at 15, and they wanted to hire her, but told her mom she had to wait until she was 16. The following year, 1939, she had a sexy debut in Hotel For Women (she looked far older with the right make-up), and the same year she had the lead against Tyrone Power Jr. in Day Time Wife (still only 16!), becoming the youngest leading lady ever in Hollywood. She had several major successes over the following years and in 1947, she appeared in Forever Amber, which included a scene of her surviving being trapped by a fire. She had a very sad personal life, married and divorced three times, and was an alcoholic through most of her adult life. In 1965 at just 41 years of age, she was staying at her former secretary's house and was watching one of her earliest hits, "Star Dust", and a fire started and she was burned to death, having made 46 movies. Some of her other movies include: My Darling Clementine, The Mark of Zorro, and The Song of Bernadette