Sunday, January 23, 2022

PAST OBITS: MARILYN MAXWELL

Here is the obituary for the beautiful and talented Marilyn Maxwell as it appeared in the New York Times on March 21, 1972...


BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., March 20 (UPI)—Marilyn Maxwell, who starred in numerous song‐and‐dance movies in’ the 1940's and later on television comedy shows, died today at her home at the age of 49.

Miss Maxwell, who had been under treatment for high blood pressure and a pulmonary ailment, was found in the bathroom by her son, Matthew, 15 years old, when he returned home from school in the afternoon, the police said.

A Durable Blonde

Miss Maxwell's durable blonde good looks and breezy manner carried her from World War II action films, radio and musical comedy to frequent television appearances.

She. appeared with Robert Taylor in ‘Stand By for Action,” with Wallace Beery in “Salute to the Marines” and with Kay Kyser in “Swing Fever,” in which Bosley Crowther, movie critic of The New York Times, called her “a routine blonde warbler.” She showed up with. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in “Lost in Harems; and was in several of the “Dr. Gillespie” medical sagas with Lionel Barrymore and Van Johnson.

In 1948, she won praise from Mr. Crowther as the “pictorial and sensuous Belle” in “Summer Holiday,” a musical screen version of Eugene O'Neill's “Ali! Wilderness” with Mickey Rooney.

In 1950 Mr. Crowther found her “lushly attractive as the bubble dancer who inhabits convention hotels” in “Key to the City,” in which Clark Gable played the lead.


That year she also was the female star of Bob Hope's troupe of entertainers visiting Korea in the early months of the conflict there. She had appeared with him in “The Lemon Drop Kid” and later in “Off Limits.”

On television she starred in a version of the stage show “Burlesque”in 1955 with a cast including Dan Dailey and Jack Oakie.

In 1961, television took the title “Bus Stop” from the William Inge play as a format for a series. Miss Maxwell played Gracie, proprietress of the roadside stop, but she later dropped out of the cast with the complaint that she was not suffi ciently involved in the actual plots.

Miss Maxwell, who was born in Clarinda, Iowa, graduated to Hollywood from the Pasadena Playhouse.

Her three marriages—to John Conte, an actor; Andy McIntyre, a restaurateur, and Jerry Davis, a producer—ended in divorce. Her surviving son,. Matthew, was a child of the third marriage...

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