Celebrity Biographies
Mary Carlisle
Blue-eyed, her idyllic porcelain beauty garnered much attention in the 1930s. Though largely forgotten afterward, she was successful as Bing Crosby’s partner in three musicals, but also appeared with Greta Garbo in “Grand Hotel.” Mary Carlisle died at the respectable age of 104 at the Woodland Hills Nursing Home for Film and Television Professionals on August 1, 2018.
Born in Boston (Massachussetts), on February 3, 1914, the mother of Gwendolyn Witter (her real name) moved to Hollywood when her daughter was 4 years old, after the death of her father. One day she was having coffee with her in a cafeteria when the producer Carl Laemmle Jr. from Universal approached them to tell them that the girl had caught her attention, and that he wanted to give her a screen test. Despite her photogenicity, her mother did not let her work in the cinema until she finished high school.
He appeared as an extra in various titles, including Cecil B. DeMille ‘s Madame Satan , and Grand Hotel , one of the greatest hits of the time. In 1932 she was one of the fifteen selected – along with the later legendary Ginger Rogers – to receive the WAMPAS Baby Star, an award for the most promising young women incorporated into the industry. She has been the last of the winners of this title to pass away.
The following year, Mary Carlisle starred with Bing Crosby in the musical College Humor , where her character charmed a teacher and the star of the football team. The film was so successful that the pair repeated in Double or Nothing and Doctor Rhythm . Besides, she shared the screen with Maureen O’Hara , in Dance, girl, dance and Lionel Barrymore , in Three Women .
In 1942, she married James Blakeley , an actor who ended up becoming a publisher, working mainly on series such as Batman . The couple, who had a son, James Blakeley III; He was together until the death of her husband, in 2007 at the age of 96.
Just then he retired from the cinema forever after starring in Los muertos andan , a horror film considered cult by fans of the genre. From that moment she was in charge of a beauty salon.