Gladys Malvern

Gladys Malvern (July 17, 1897 – November 16, 1962) was an American vaudeville and Broadway actress, radio script writer, and author. As a child actress, she appeared in the 1908 Broadway production of The Man Who Stood Still. Gladys often collaborated on stage with her younger sister Corinne Malvern, who also illustrated her books. Gladys Malvern is perhaps best remembered for her prolific writing of historical and biographical novels for young adults, including The Foreigner, According to Thomas and Behold Your Queen!.

Gladys Malvern was born in Newark, New Jersey on July 17, 1897, the daughter of Edward Malvern and Cora Lillian Malvern, a theater company wardrobe mistress. She was raised as a stage child by her mother in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and California.

Young Gladys Malvern won her first role on a New York stage at the age of three. In 1908, at age 11, Gladys appeared at the Circle Theater on Broadway in The Man Who Stood Still. By 1910, the two Malvern sisters were working regularly in traveling vaudeville productions, as well as in the burgeoning New York movie industry; Gladys as an and Corinne as "fairies, babies, witches, and other funny little people." By the age of 14, Gladys began playing leading roles in traveling companies. Her fellow troupers called her "the youngest stock leading woman in the business." When interviewed about this period in her life, Malvern is quoted as saying:

…until I was twenty-one, home to me was anywhere—hotels, trains, boarding houses; for my sister, Corinne Malvern, and I were ‘stage children.’ When I stopped being a ‘stage child,’ I became what they called an ingenue, and then a leading lady. But by this time I had decided I didn't like wandering about, and I began to think how nice it would be to have a home like other people.

During the 1920s, the Malvern family moved to Los Angeles, where Corinne worked as a fashion artist, and Gladys began working at a department store. Later, Gladys began writing copy for advertising agencies, while her sister Corinne studied art under Theodore Lukits. According to census records, at some point during this time period Gladys married, and subsequently divorced. After the publication and success of her first few novels, Gladys moved back to New York with her sister; both of them working from an apartment which overlooked the Hudson River. Of this period in her life, Malvern was quoted as saying:

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