Fay McKenzie

Fay McKenzie
Fay McKenzie, c. 1940s
Born	Eunice Fay McKenzie (1918-02-19) February 19, 1918 (age 99) Hollywood, California, USA
Other names	Fay Shannon
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1918–1981
Known for	Westerns
Spouse(s)	Steve Cochran (m. 1946–48) Tom Waldman (m. 1948; d. 1985)
Children	2

Eunice Fay McKenzie (born February 19, 1918) is an American film actress known for her leading lady roles in five Gene Autry films in the early 1940s.

Eunice Fay McKenzie was born on February 19, 1918, in Hollywood, California, to show business parents, Eva (née Heazlitt) and Robert McKenzie. Her father had a stock company called the McKenzie Merry Makers, and was both an actor and director in stage productions and films. His company included such actors as Broncho Billy Anderson, Ben Turpin, and Victor Potel. When she was ten weeks old, she appeared in the film Station Content (1918) as Gloria Swanson's baby. She appeared in four other silent films as a child: A Knight of the West (1921) as Fray Murten, When Love Comes (1922) as Ruth, The Judgment of the Storm (1924) as a Heath Twin, and The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln (1924) as young Sarah Lincoln. Fay's sisters Ida Mae McKenzie and Ella McKenzie, and her brother-in-law Billy Gilbert, were also actors.

After a ten-year break from acting in order to focus on her education, McKenzie returned to films in 1934 in Student Tour as Mary Lou. That year she made her first short Western film, Sundown Trail, with wally Wales. McKenzie later recalled,

Oh my gosh, my first grown up role. My father took me. He knew everybody, and I got the job. Even though I was only 15 years old! We shot that in three days, and there was no script. They'd all ride one way and say this, then they'd all ride the other way and say that. It was very improvisational, but a great event in my life.

McKenzie appeared in numerous uncredited roles throughout the 1930s, with occasional credited roles in The Boss Cowboy (1934) as Sally Nolan, Thunderbolt (1935) as Annie, Assassin of Youth (1937) as Linda Clayton, and Slander House (1938) as Anna. In 1938, she began to appear mainly in Western films, such as Ghost Town Riders (1938) as Molly Taylor (credited as Fay Shannon), Death Rides the Range (1939) as Letty Morgan, All Women Have Secrets (1939) as Martha, and When the Daltons Rode (1940) as Hannah. In 1940, McKenzie appeared in the stage show Meet the People, which premiered in Los Angeles and ended up on Broadway.