Lillian Roth
| Lillian Roth | |
|---|---|
Roth in 1930.
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| Born |
Lillian Rutstein December 13, 1910 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | May 12, 1980 (aged 69) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Resting place | Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Hawthorne, New York |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1917–1979 |
| Spouse(s) | Mark Harris (?–?; divorced) William C. Scott (1931–1932; divorced) Benjamin Shalleck (1933–1939; divorced) Eugene Weiner (1940–1941; divorced) Edward Goldman (1942–1945; divorced) Thomas Burt McGuire (?–1963; divorced) |
Lillian Roth (December 13, 1910 – May 12, 1980) was an American singer and actress.
Her life story was told in the 1955 film I'll Cry Tomorrow, in which she was portrayed by Susan Hayward, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Roth.
Roth was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Katie (née Silverman) and Arthur Rutstein. Her family was Jewish. She was only 6 years old when her mother took her to Educational Pictures, where she became the company's trademark, symbolized by a living statue holding a lamp of knowledge. In her autobiography, she described being molested by the man who painted her as a statue.
The following year, she made her Broadway debut in The Inner Man. Her motion-picture debut came in 1918 in Pershing's Crusaders as an extra. Together with her sister Ann, she toured as "Lillian Roth and Co." At times, the two were billed as "The Roth Kids". One of the most exciting moments for her came when she met U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. According to her autobiography, the president took Lillian and her sister for a ride around the block in his chauffeur-driven car, after attending a performance of their vaudeville act.
Roth entered the Clark School of Concentration in the early 1920s. She appeared in Artists and Models in 1923 and went on to make Revels with Frank Fay. During production for the former show, she told management she was 19 years of age.
In 1927, when Roth was 17, she made the first of three Earl Carroll Vanities, which was soon followed by Midnight Frolics, a Florenz Ziegfeld production.
Soon the young actress signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures. Among the films she made with Paramount were The Love Parade (1929) with Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, The Vagabond King (1930), Paramount on Parade (1930), Honey (1930; in which she introduced "Sing, You Sinners"), Cecil B. DeMille's Madam Satan (1930) with Reginald Denny and Kay Johnson, Sea Legs with Jack Oakie, and the Marx Brothers' second film, Animal Crackers (1930). She took over Ethel Merman's stage role in the film version of Take a Chance, singing "Eadie Was a Lady". After leaving Paramount, she had a supporting role in the women's prison film Ladies They Talk About (Warner Bros., 1933) with Barbara Stanwyck.
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