Claudia Dell
| Claudia Dell | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Claudia Dell Smith January 10, 1910 San Antonio, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | September 5, 1977 (aged 67) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Film, stage actress |
| Spouse(s) | Phillip G. Offin (1928-1930, divorced) Edward Silton (1934-1947) (divorced) Daniel Emmett (1947-?) |
Claudia Dell (January 10, 1910 – September 5, 1977) was an American showgirl and actress of the stage and Hollywood motion pictures.
Dell's birth name was Claudia Dell Smith. She was born in San Antonio, Texas, on January 10, 1910. She attended school in San Antonio and Mexico. Dell was blonde and blue-eyed, with a porcelain face. Her height was 5'5". She was said to have been the model for the Columbia Pictures logo.
Dell's aunt Mary Dell was an actress in vaudeville. Her niece desired to go on the stage from an early age. Claudia's first experience as an entertainer was playing her violin for soldiers at Kelly Field during World War I. She visited New York with Mary at age 14 and yearned to remain there.
After completing her education at home, Dell returned to New York and became an understudy to Irene Delroy in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. She studied acting in New York City at the Academy and singing at the Juilliard School. Soon she was sent to London to play the lead in a musical comedy, Mary Mary. The play's run lasted one year. While in England, scouts from Warner Brothers noticed her and asked her to come to Hollywood. She returned to New York along with her aunt following a tour of southern Europe. Claudia became homesick, rejected leads offered her in two stage productions and moved to Los Angeles, California, where her family was living.
Dell made her screen debut following an interlude of three months after coming west. She was given a contract by Warner Bros. to star in a number of musical pictures. She played the title role in a lavish Technicolor musical film, Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930). Her next role was in another important musical, co-starring with Al Jolson in Big Boy (1930). Unfortunately, late in 1930, due to the beginning of the Great Depression, the public had grown weary of musicals. Warner Brothers, however, had already begun to film two other musicals (which would be released in 1931) in which Dell was given a leading role. The first of these was another lavish Technicolor production entitled Fifty Million Frenchmen. In the second film, Sit Tight (1931), she played the love interest of Paul Gregory, another musical star. Ironically, both pictures had their musical sequences cut before release. Warner Bros. dropped her option in 1931 (along with most of its other musical stars) and Claudia (having become associated with musicals) was relegated to Poverty Row productions.
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