Mary Eaton
| Mary Eaton | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Mary Eaton January 29, 1901 Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | October 10, 1948 (aged 47) Hollywood, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | cirrhosis of the liver |
| Years active | 1924-1942 |
| Spouse(s) |
Millard Webb (1929-1935) (his death) Charles A. Emery (1937-1942) (divorced) Eddie Laughton (?-1948) (her death) |
Mary Eaton (January 29, 1901 – October 10, 1948) was a leading American stage actress, singer, and dancer in the 1910s and 1920s. A professional performer since childhood, she enjoyed success in stage productions such as the Ziegfeld Follies and early sound films such as Glorifying the American Girl and The Cocoanuts, but found her career in sharp decline by the mid-1930s. A battle with alcoholism led to her death in 1948 from liver failure.
Eaton, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, began attending dance lessons in Washington D.C., along with her sisters Doris and Pearl, at the age of seven. In 1911, all three sisters were hired for a production of Maurice Maeterlinck's fantasy play The Blue Bird at the Shubert Belasco Theatre in Washington. While Eaton had a minor role in the show, it marked the beginning of her career in professional theatre.
After The Blue Bird ended, in 1912, the three Eaton sisters and their younger brother Joe began appearing in various plays and melodramas for the Poli stock company. They quickly gained reputations as professional, reliable, and versatile actors, and were rarely out of work.
In 1915, all three sisters appeared in a new production of The Blue Bird for Poli; Doris and Mary were given the starring roles of Mytyl and Tytyl. The siblings were subsequently invited to reprise their roles for a New York and road tour of the play, produced by the Shubert Brothers. When the show closed, on the recommendation of the Shuberts, Mary began studying ballet in earnest with Theodore Kosloff.
Of all of the Eatons, Mary was perhaps the most famous and the most popular. An exceptionally talented dancer, she earned raves in a production of Intime in Washington DC in 1917. The same year, she made her Broadway debut in the Shubert Brothers' Over the Top with Fred and Adele Astaire. Throughout the 1920s, Eaton was a constant presence on Broadway, appearing in eight different productions.
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