Edith Fellows

Edith Fellows
Edith Fellows in 1937
Born	Edith Marilyn Fellows (1923-05-20)May 20, 1923 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	June 26, 2011(2011-06-26) (aged 88) Woodland Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1929–1995
Spouse(s)	Freddie Fields (m. 1946–1956, divorced)
Children	Kathy Fields

Edith Marilyn Fellows (May 20, 1923 – June 26, 2011) was an American actress who became a child star in the 1930s. Best known for playing orphans and street urchins, Fellows was an expressive actress with a good singing voice. She made her screen debut at the age of five in Charley Chase's film short Movie Night (1929). Her first credited role in a feature film was The Rider of Death Valley (1932). By 1935, she had appeared in over twenty films. Her performance opposite Claudette Colbert and Melvyn Douglas in She Married Her Boss (1935) won her a seven-year contract with Columbia Pictures, the first such contract offered to a child.

Fellows appeared in a series of leading roles for Columbia, including Tugboat Princess (1936), Little Miss Roughneck (1938), and The Little Adventuress (1938). Her performance as the precocious orphan alongside Bing Crosby in Pennies from Heaven (1936) won her critical acclaim. In 1942, she appeared in two Gene Autry films, Heart of the Rio Grande and Stardust on the Sage, which highlighted her fine singing voice. Her acting career was interrupted in the 1940s by serious personal problems, her own life becoming more Dickensian than the characters she portrayed on screen. In the 1980s, she returned to acting with sporadic roles in television series. Between 1929 and 1995, Fellows appeared in over seventy films and television programs.

Edith Marilyn Fellows was born on May 20, 1923, in Boston, Massachusetts, the only child of Willis and Harriet Fellows. Her mother abandoned her a few months after her birth. At the age of two, she moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, with her father and her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Fellows.

As a toddler, she took dancing lessons to correct her pigeon-toed walk. At the age of four, she was spotted by a supposed talent scout who arranged a Hollywood screen test for fifty dollars. She and her grandmother traveled to Hollywood by train to discover they had been swindled. While her grandmother worked as a housecleaner, she stayed with a local family whose son worked as an extra in movies. She accompanied him to the studio one day. Without being asked, she began dancing and singing in front of the bemused director. When the boy became ill a few days later, the studio sent the message "Send the girl." She was soon cast in comedian Charley Chase's film short Movie Night (1929), playing Charley's brat daughter on a family outing to the movies.