In the 1930s, several child actors and actresses worked in Hollywood, including Jackie Cooper, Freddie Bartholomew, and Johnny Sheffield. At the same time, two of them, Shirley Temple and Jane Withers, even became some of the decade’s leading box office attractions. Additionally, several others were less frequent in the spotlight, but they nonetheless, and for various reasons, were able to pursue a unique and notable career in films as well. One of them is Cora Sue Collins.

Born on April 27, 1927, in Beckley, West Virginia, she made her Hollywood screen debut in “The Unexpected Father” (1932) opposite ‘Slim’ Summerville and ZaSu Pitts. In the years to come, it happened ever so often that a film had a flashback to the star’s childhood. That turned out to be the perfect part for Miss Collins, as she played a young Frances Dee (“The Strange Case of Clara Deane,” 1932), Norma Shearer (“Smilin’ Through,” 1932), Claudette Colbert (“Torch Singer,” 1933), Sylvia Sidney (“Jennie Gerhardt,” 1933), Greta Garbo (“Queen Christina,” 1933), Zita Johann (“The Sin of Nora Moran,” 1933), Dorothy Lee (“Without Children,” 1935), Merle Oberon (“The Dark Angel,” 1935) and Lynn Bari (“Blood and Sand,” 1941).

Ms. Collins, how do you explain your success as a child actress?

I must have had a very common face. In this Freudian era, when I was young, I played everybody as a child. I guess they could make me up to look like anyone [laughs]. Yet I hope they weren’t paying me for nothing. Movies were incredibly magical to me back then: all little girls want to play dress up, and there I was in an industry where I was being dressed by the most famous costume designers. I was made-up by the most famous make-up men and hairdressers; I was taught by the most famous choreographers, and was permitted to play with the most famous movie stars. It was every little girl’s dream, so it was totally magical. But it was also hard work back then; at times, I worked six days a week. Children were permitted three hours a day that they didn’t have to work. Sometimes they had to be on the lot at five o’clock in the morning and had to work until late in the evening. That shows you how resilient children are. I would be in front of the camera, and then the assistant director would say, ‘All right, Cora Sue, you go to your dressing room and take a fifteen-minute nap!’ This would be fifteen minutes taken out of those three hours that I was permitted to rest a day, and even to this day, I can still take a nap like that.

Ms. Collins, at a very young age, Greta Garbo selected you to play Queen Christina as a little girl in the 1933 film. How did that come about?

That was very simple: whenever there was a part for a little girl, she wanted me—I also played her niece in “Anna Karenina” [1935], because during the filming of “Queen Christina,” Miss Garbo and I became friends. She used to invite me to her dressing room on the lot. I used to see her in New York later on, whenever I was there, I used to go and visit her in her apartment, and we’d have tea. She also had an apartment in Paris, we lived on the same street, she lived a block down from me, so I’d see her there as well. But I didn’t see her anymore in her final year. Many things that have been written about her, I disagree with. She was a private person, and in her last year she didn’t want to be seen because she thought her magnificent beauty had faded, which I also disagree with. In fact, I was fortunate to meet many stars and directors when I was a child. It is difficult to be rude to a child, and some of the most difficult people in Hollywood to work with were kind to me, and so, I grew up loving them. But Miss Garbo was always very special. As she has passed away, I don’t think she’d mind telling this. I was about thirteen and started to develop. We were having lunch at her house one day, and she said, ‘Cora Sue, you are very fortunate, you will never have to swim a hundred laps in an ice-cold swimming pool every morning because you are going to have beautiful breasts!’ Someone evidently had told her years before that swimming in ice-cold water would develop her bosom, and it never did. But she was sweet, kind, and gracious. Until she passed away, I called her Miss Garbo and she called me Cora Sue, which was correct. She had asked me if I would call her GG, which was her nickname, but I wouldn’t or couldn’t do that. [Director] Rouben Mamoulian only wanted authenticity, and it was wonderful.

Although working for and at different studios, you were also under contract at MGM. Do you remember what kind of contract it was?

No, I don’t. I do remember going to court, not to sue MGM or anything, but in those days, things had to be very legal, particularly when children were under contract. It was much more than just signing a paper. However, we were also like cattle; it was as though we were owned. We had no rights whatsoever. They told us how to dress. They told us who we could meet, they practically told us with whom we could speak. When you were under contract, you were their property. Yet, despite its disadvantages, it was also an advantage for me. One, Mr. Mayer was very interested in his players. If they had a special talent, he would foster that more than anything else, so when I was studying, he gave me the most wonderful teachers. He was a very demanding head of the studio, not always benevolent, and it is not the life I would want my children to live. My daughters did have opportunities at MGM—we were coming out of mass one day, and we ran into Eddie Mannix, one of the heads of the studio. One of my daughters ran down the stairs in front of the church ahead of me, and he put his hand out on top of her head and said, ‘Are you Cora Sue’s daughter?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ Then he saw me, and he said, ‘Will you bring her to the studio tomorrow?’ If my children, when they were grownups and had finished college, had traveled around the world and knew what they really wanted to do with their lives, if they wanted to become actors then, that would be their choice, but not as children. There are too many disadvantages. So I made up some wild stories that their father wouldn’t let them work, etc., which he would have been as opposed to had he known about it anyway. It is an interesting life for a child, but it is not a childhood. You have very little peer companionship because the only children in your school are those who are working. They can be ten years older than you. Those of us who were friends were very close friends, and I never noticed nor recalled any rivalry or jealousy among us. It was really very nice. And many of us are still very close. Perhaps now child actors have a childhood because they don’t have to work those long hours, but still it’s not a childhood I would recommend. It’s a bizarre childhood. That’s why I think I got married very young, immediately had three children, and then did all the things I hadn’t been able to do as a little girl myself. We did everything together, and that’s also the reason why I never resumed my acting career. I did have opportunities—I did a Broadway show called ‘Junior Miss,’ I had opportunities to do theater, television, and more film, but I have my life, and I like it. I enjoy recalling my childhood, but that’s really like yesterday’s newspaper—you wrap the trash in it.

“Queen Christina” (1933, trailer)

So at one point, you decided to quit the motion picture industry, with “Week-End at the Waldorf” [1945] starring Ginger Rogers and Lana Turner being your final film.

I went up to Mr. Mayer’s office and told him, ‘I wanted to get out of my contract.’ He was very upset about it, he waggled his finger under my nose and said, ‘Cora Sue, you will never work on a sound stage again as long as you live.’ And I said, ‘Mr. Mayer, that is my heartfelt desire.’ To this day, I do think it’s the best single decision of my life. I could have still been working in films or on the Broadway stage, but I learned the luxury of anonymity at a very early age; it’s fun to be a housewife from Phoenix, I like it. When I am on a flight to New York, Paris, or London, and you chat, and then they’ll ask, ‘And what do you do?’ When I can say, ‘I am a housewife from Phoenix’—it’s something I love, I can just be myself. That idea of having to be perfect all the time no longer exists. It took me a hell of a long time to figure out who myself was. I only knew how to play parts, I only knew how to play other people. On top of that, I didn’t know how to play. Poor Mr. Mayer, he gave me one singing lesson after another, all to no avail. All I did was develop a pair of lungs; I could swim the English Channel underwater [laughs]. After I got married, I went back to college, and I studied architecture because I believed there was a great void in the field of architecture for women. Homes were designed primarily by men for women who want a certain type of kitchen or bathroom. So I thought it would be a good idea to become an architect, but I found out it took about four years of drawing before I could even begin to study architecture. I bought the textbooks of architecture, studied those on the side at home, took interior design, and started redesigning my husband’s hotel—he was a hotelier. I was very intrigued with interior decorating, and I decorated our hotel and two other chains, so I was could please someone other than my husband. But I never wanted to decorate any person’s home, because women are very difficult in decorating. Even though they may employ a person such as me, they still feel that it relates so much to their own sense of taste, and if it’s not this or that, they will be criticized by their friends. So it is much more fun and a lot easier to work for a business like a hotel or a bank. After my husband passed away, my children and I lived in Mexico, South America and Europe. I would just pack up my three little children, my Irish nanny, and our two dogs until I met my second husband, who was in the theater business.

What is your life like now? What do you do these days?

I do a lot of good works. I work a great deal for medical charity, and I sit on the boards of three hospitals. I never miss a board meeting, and it is very gratifying to me. I got involved for the first time with charity work when I had my seventh birthday party, which was given to me by Louis B. Mayer. It was a joint birthday party because our birthdays were on the very same day, along with [actress] May Robson. Every star, every director, every producer on the lot, they were all invited to this party and I must have received four hundred or five hundred gifts. My mother told me, ‘You may select five gifts.’ Eventually, she let me select seven, and all the other gifts were given to the LA County Orphanage. So the studio put all of those gifts together, still wrapped with a gift card, we sent secretaries to the Orphanage, and we let the orphans open the gifts, let them keep the wrappings, keep the cards, but the secretaries wrote down what gifts had been given by whom, so I was able to write them thank you notes. Anyway, from then on, I have been involved in charity work, and it touches my heart. I did the same thing with my children; I brought them up the same way. From the time they were very little, we would work for charitable endeavors, and they’re still very involved in it. I believe we must pay our dues. If we live in a city or a country, we should work for it. They give us a great deal, so we owe it to them. I have four fantastic grandchildren now, so it’s an entirely different life, but still, I do appreciate my childhood. For years, I wouldn’t even talk about it or attend any events until [mutual friend and deceased Hollywood casting agent] Marvin Paige convinced me to do so. So I once did a personal appearance for the celebration of David O. Selznick’s hundredth birthday [in 2002]. When they called me, they asked me if I could be here on such and such date. I said, ‘But David’s dead, what’s there to celebrate?’ They wanted to run “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” [1938] and wanted to interview me because there’s so few of us left that were in that film. I went over and I really enjoyed it. That was the first time I made a personal appearance since I was sixteen years old. Then I went to a photograph signing for former movie stars, and it was great fun! It was marvelous seeing all these fans who remembered me from those films. It was very flattering, and I enjoyed it tremendously.

Which of your films did you enjoy the most?

The films I loved the most include “Queen Christina,” not only because I was playing a queen—a child’s dream to play a queen—but because of the advantage of getting to know Greta Garbo as well as I did, and Rouben Mamoulian who was fabulous. The first film I did, made at Universal with Slim Summerville and ZaSu Pitts, “The Unexpected Father,” [1932], was great fun. I played a little waif obtained by some bootlegger who put me in a baby carriage—even though I was about four years old and not a baby—to cover for illegal bottles of alcohol. My first film at MGM was “Smilin’ Through” [1932, with Norma Shearer, Fredric March, and Leslie Howard, with Miss Collins playing Norma Shearer’s character as a child]. That was when I met Lionel Barrymore and a lot of stars at MGM. He became a very close friend; later on, I also did a radio show with him for about a year, with a story about a grandfather and a granddaughter. And “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” [1938] was great fun because there were a lot of children, I had more peer companionship. Apart from that, I had the distinction of being Peter Lorre’s child patient in “Mad Love” [1935], his American screen debut.

You have traveled the world over and over ever since, and now you divide your time between Beverly Hills and Paris?

Yes, I live in Paris six months a year. I speak English, French, Spanish, enough Italian and Portuguese to get by, and enough German to be thoroughly dangerous [laughs]. You have to, if you spend a lot of time in another country, how can you enjoy its music, its poetry, its literature if you don’t speak or can’t read the language? What can you learn from just looking at the exterior of a museum? You have to delve, you have to study. And from that comes the pleasure. I think it also develops humility because you get to see all sides of life. Living in the heart of Beverly Hills like I do, you don’t see a lot of poverty, distress, or sadness, but living in the nicest area in Mexico City, you get to see the beggars and these terrible poor people that you want to help, and you must develop, as my children did, a need to help others.

What do you think of today’s actors in general?

Film actors today have such exposure to the public, and when they say something, people think that it’s gospel, that it’s etched in granite. Just because someone has written a book, that doesn’t mean he’s qualified to write that book. He may not even know what he’s talking about. But living in Europe almost half of the time, I have the benefit of listening to many political views that we don’t hear as strongly over here. Newspapers often write what the leadership wants to read, and television projects what the viewers want to see and hear. In Europe, I find more freedom—we have freedom of the press, but I read more in French papers than I read in American papers. When [former French President] Mitterand was in office, he had an affair with a lady; they’d write a few lines, and then they’d forget about it because a person’s personal life—whether it is a politician or someone like you or me—is something private. So I am extremely fortunate to live half of the time in France and half of the time in the US. I get the best of both worlds.

What’s your secret to doing so many things on so many different levels?

I think it’s probably because of my insatiable curiosity. I guess that’s my drive. I love a challenge, and I try not to set goals for myself that are unrealistic. I will not say that I would try to be a gymnast and represent us in the Olympics. I’m not young enough; it’s not my calling. In fact, I don’t want to be a gymnast. I pursue whatever I can achieve, that I do. When my first husband passed away, my children were very young, and I thought, ‘They don’t have anyone to admire as far as sports are concerned.’ I’m not a touch football type—I was a ballet dancer, for God’s sake. When I was at MGM, they didn’t even let me learn how to ride a bicycle or use roller skates because they were afraid I would hurt myself and I once did—the first time I sneaked out on roller skates, I broke my right arm. We were in the middle of a film, and I had to wear a cast all through the film. So, as I didn’t have a sportive background, as a child or a young adult, what can I do that my children could admire? We lived in Acapulco then, and I thought water skiing would be the answer; for a dancer, that should not be too difficult. I can’t even take any credit for being good at it because for any professional ballet dancer—particularly someone who has danced on point or a professional ice skater—who makes a lateral transfer, it is so simple to become a very proficient water skier. So I did become a water skier. I competed, I became double champion of Mexico, and we competed against every other woman at that time. That goal was realistic to me. I achieved my ambition, and my children saw in me a sports figure they could admire.

Beverly Hills, California
March 8, 2003

“Weekend at the Waldorf” (1945, trailer)

FILMS

THE UNEXPECTED FATHER (Universal, 1932) DIR Thornton Freeland PROD Carl Laemmle, Jr. SCR Dale Van Every CAST ‘Slim’ Summerville, ZaSu Pitts, Cora Sue Collins (Pudge), Claude Allister

THE STRANGE CASE OF CLARA DEANE (Paramount, 1932) DIR Louis Gasnier, Max Marcin SCR Max Marcin CAST Wynne Gibson, Pat O’Brien, Dudley Digges, Frances Dee, Cora Sue Collins (Nancy [Frances Dee] as a child)

SILVER DOLLAR (First National, 1932) DIR Alfred E. Green SCR Carl Erickson, Harvey Thew (novel ‘Silver Dollar: The Story of the Tabors’ [1932] by David Karsner) CAST Edward G. Robinson, Bebe Daniels, Aline MacMahon, DeWitt Jennings, Cora Sue Collins (Maryanne)

SMILIN’ THROUGH (MGM, 1932) DIR Sidney Franklin SCR Ernest Vajda, Claudine West (play ‘Smilin’ Through’ [1919] by Jane Cowl, Jane Murfin) CAST Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Leslie Howard, O.P. Heggie, Cora Sue Collins (Kathleen [Norma Shearer] as a child)

MYSTERIOUS RIDER (Paramount, 1933) DIR Fred Allen SCR Harvey Gates, Robert N. Lee CAST Kent Taylor, Lona Andre, Irving Pichel, Gail Patrick, Cora Sue Collins (Jo-Jo Foster)

PICTURE SNATCHER (Warner Bros., 1933) DIR Lloyd Bacon SCR William Keighley (story by Danny Ahearn) CAST James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, Patricia Ellis, Alice White, Cora Sue Collins (Little Girl)

MAN OF ACTION (Columbia, 1933) DIR George Melford SCR Robert Quigley (story by William Colt MacDonald) CAST Tim McCoy, Caryl Lincoln, Julian Rivero, Walter Brennan, Cora Sue Collins (Maria)

THEY JUST HAD TO GET MARRIED (Universal, 1933) DIR Edward Ludwig PROD Carl Laemmle, Jr. SCR Gladys Lehman, H.M. Walker (play ‘A Pair of Silk Stockings’ [1914] by Cyril Harcourt) CAST ‘Slim’ Summerville, ZaSu Pitts, Roland Young, Fifi D’Orsay, Cora Sue Collins (Rosalie)

TORCH SINGER (Paramount, 1933) DIR Alexander Hall, George Somnes PROD Albert Lewis SCR Lenore Coffee, Lynn Starling (short story ‘Mike’ [1933] by Grace Perkins) CAST Claudette Colbert, Ricardo Cortez, David Manners, Lyda Roberti, Baby LeRoy, Cora Sue Collins (Sally [Claudette Colbert] as a child)

JENNIE GERHARDT (Paramount, 1933) DIR Marion Gering PROD B.P. Schulberg SCR S.K. Lauren, Frank Partos (novel ‘Jennie Gerhardt’ [1911] by Theodore Dreiser) CAST Sylvia Sidney, Donald Cook, Mary Astor, Edward Arnold, Cora Sue Collins (Jennie [Sylvia Sidney] as a girl)

THE PRIZEFIGHTER AND THE LADY (MGM, 1933) DIR W.S. Van Dyke SCR John Lee Mahin, John Meehan (story by Frances Marion) CAST Myrna Loy, Max Baer, Primo Carnera, Jack Dempsey, Walter Huston, Cora Sue Collins (Farmer’s daughter)

MARY STEVENS, M.D. (Warner Bros., 1933) DIR Lloyd Bacon SCR Rian James, Robert Lord (story by Virginia Kellogg) CAST Kay Francis, Lyle Talbot, Glenda Farrell, Thelma Todd, Harold Huber, Cora Sue Collins (Jane)

QUEEN CHRISTINA (MGM, 1933) DIR Rouben Mamoulian PROD Walter Wanger SCR H.M. Harwood, Salka Viertel (story by Salka Viertel, Margaret P. Levino) CAST Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, Elizabeth Young, Cora Sue Collins (Christina [Greta Garbo] as a child)

THE SIN OF NORA MORAN (Majestic, 1933) DIR – Prod Phil Goldstone SCR Frances Hyland (play by Willis Maxwell Goodhue) CAST Zita Johann, Paul Cavanagh, Alan Dinehart, Claire Du Brey, John Miljan, Cora Sue Collins (Nora Moran [Zita Johann] as a child)

BLACK MOON (Columbia, 1934) DIR Roy William Neill PROD Everett Riskin SCR Wells Root (story by Clements Ripley) CAST Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Dorothy Burgess, Cora Sue Collins (Nancy), Arnold Forff

AS THE EARTH TURNS (Warner Bros., 1934) DIR Alfred E. Green SCR Ernest Pascal (novel ‘As the Earth Turns’ [1933] by Gladys Hasty Carroll) CAST Jean Muir, Donald Woods, Emily Lowry, William Janney, Cora Sue Collins (Marie)

THE SCARLET LETTER (Majestic, 1934) DIR Robert G. Vignola PROD Larry Darmour SCR Leonard Fields, David Silverstein (novel ‘The Scarlet Letter’ [1850] by Nathaniel Hawthorne) CAST Colleen Moore, Hardie Albright, Henry B. Walthall, Cora Sue Collins (Pearl), Alan Hale

TREASURE ISLAND (MGM, 1934) DIR Victor Fleming PROD Hunt Stromberg SCR John Lee Mahin (novel ‘Treasure Island’ [1883] by Robert Louis Stevenson) CAST Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Cora Sue Collins (Young Girl at the Inn)

THE WORLD ACCUSES (Chesterfield, 1934) DIR Charles Lamont SCR Charles Belden (also adaptation) CAST Vivian Tobin, Dickie Moore, Cora Sue Collins (‘Pat’ Collins), Russell Hopton, Harold Huber

EVELYN PRENTICE (MGM, 1934) DIR William K. Howard. PROD John W. Considine, Jr. SCR Lenore Coffee (novel ‘Evelyn Prentice’ [1933] by W.E. Woodward) CAST William Powell, Myrna Loy, Una Merkel, Rosalind Russell, Isabel Jewell, Cora Sue Collins (Dorothy Prentice)

CARAVAN (Fox Film Corp., 1934) DIR Erik Charell SCR Melchior Lengyel CAST Charles Boyer, Loretta Young, Jean Parker, Phillips Holmes, Cora Sue Collins (Child)

ELINOR NORTON (Fox Film Corp., 1934) DIR Hamilton MacFadden PROD Sol M. Wurtzel SCR Rose Franken, Philip Klein (novel ‘The State Versus Elinor Norton’ [1933] by Mary Roberts Rinehart) CAST Claire Trevor, Gilbert Roland, Henrietta Crosman, Hugh Williams, Cora Sue Collins (Betty)

NAUGHTY MARIETTA (MGM, 1935) DIR W.S. Van Dyke PROD Hunt Stromberg SCR John Lee Mahin, Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett (operetta ‘Naughty Marietta’ [1910], music by Victor Herbert, book and lyrics by Rida Johnson Young) CAST Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Frank Morgan, Elsa Lanchester, Cora Sue Collins (Felice)

LITTLE MEN (Mascot, 1935) DIR Phil Rosen SCR Gertrude Orr (novel ‘Little Men’ [1871] by Louisa May Alcott) CAST Ralph Morgan, Erin O’Brien-Moore, Junior Durkin, Cora Sue Collins (Daisy), Phyllis Fraser, Dickie Moore

ANNA KARENINA (MGM, 1935) DIR Clarence Brown PROD David O. Selznick SCR Salka Viertel, Clemence Dane (novel ‘Anna Karenina’ [1878] by Leo Tolstoy) CAST Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Freddie Bartholomew, Maureen O’Sullivan, May Robson, Basil Rathbone, Cora Sue Collins (Tania)

PUBLIC HERO NO. 1 (MGM, 1935) DIR J. Walter Ruben PROD Lucien Hubbard SCR Wells Root (story by J. Walter Ruben, Wells Root) CAST Lionel Barrymore, Jean Arthur, Chester Morris, Joseph Calleia, Lewis Stone, Walter Brennan, Cora Sue Collins (Little Girl)

WITHOUT CHILDREN (Liberty Pictures, 1935) DIR William Nigh SCR Gertrude Orr CAST Marguerite Churchill, Bruce Cabot, Evelyn Brent, Reginald Denny, Dorothy Lee, Dickie Moore, Cora Sue Collins (Carol Cole [Dorothy Lee] as a child)

THE DARK ANGEL (United Artists, 1935) DIR Sidney Franklin ASST DIR Fred Zinnemann PROD Samuel Goldwyn SCR Lillian Hellman, Mordaunt Shairp (play ‘The Dark Angel’ [1925] by Guy Bolton). CAST Fredric March, Merle Oberon, Herbert Marshall, Janet Beecher, Cora Sue Collins (Kitty [Merle Oberon] as a child)

MAD LOVE (MGM, 1935) DIR Karl Freund PROD John W. Considine, Jr. SCR P.J. Wolfson, John L. Balderston (novel ‘Les Mains d’Orlac’ [1920] by Maurice Renard) CAST Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy, Sara Haden, Cora Sue Collins (Lame Child Patient of Doctor Gogol [Peter Lorre])

TWO SINNERS (Republic, 1935) DIR Arthur Lubin PROD Robert E. Welsh SCR Jefferson Parker (novel ‘Two Black Sheep’ [1933] by George Warwick Deeping) CAST Otto Kruger, Martha Sleeper, Minna Gombell, Ferdinand Munier, Cora Sue Collins (Sally)

MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (Universal, 1935) DIR John M. Stahl SCR Sarah Y. Mason, Victor Heerman, George O’Neil (novel ‘Magnificent Obsession’ [1933] by Lloyd C. Douglas) CAST Irene Dunne, Robert Taylor, Charles Butterworth, Betty Furness, Sara Haden, Cora Sue Collins (Ruth)

HARMONY LANE (Mascot, 1935) DIR Joseph Santley SCR Joseph Santley, Elizabeth Meehan CAST Douglass Montgomery, Evelyn Venable, Adrienne Ames, Joseph Cawthorn, William Frawley, Cora Sue Collins (Marion)

MARY BURNS, FUGITIVE (Paramount, 1935) DIR William K. Howard SCR Gene Towne, Graham Baker CAST Sylvia Sydney, Melvyn Douglas, Alan Baxter, Pert Kelton, Wallace Ford, Cora Sue Collins (Little Girl)

DEVIL’S SQUADRON (Columbia, 1936) DIR Erle C. Kenton SCR Howard J. Green, Bruce Manning, Lionel Houser CAST Richard Dix, Karen Morley, Lloyd Nolan, Shirley Ross, Henry Mollison, Cora Sue Collins (Mary)

THREE MARRIED MEN (Paramount, 1936) DIR Edward Buzzell PROD Arthur Hornblow, Jr. SCR Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell CAST Lynne Overman, William Frawley, Roscoe Karns, Mary Brian, George Barbier, Cora Sue Collins (Sue Cary)

THE HARVESTER (Republic, 1936) DIR Joseph Santley PROD Nat Levine SCR Gertrude Orr, Homer Croy (novel ‘The Harvester’ [1911] by Gene Stratton-Porter) CAST Alice Brady, Russell Hardie, Ann Rutherford, Frank Craven, Cora Sue Collins (Naomi), Emma Dunn

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER (United Artists, 1938) DIR Norman Taurog PROD David O. Selznick SCR John V.A. Weaver (novel ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ [1876] by Mark Twain) CAST Tom Kelly, Jackie Moran, Ann Gillis, Walter Brennan, Victor Jory, Cora Sue Collins (Amy), Margaret Hamilton

STOP – LOOK AND LOVE (20th Century Fox, 1939) DIR Otto Brower SCR Harold Tarshis, Sada Cowan (play ‘The Family Upstairs’ [1925] by Harry Delf) CAST Jean Rogers, William Frawley, Robert Kellard, Eddie Collins, Minna Gombell, Cora Sue Collins (Dora)

ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO (Warner Bros., 1940) DIR Anatole Litvak SCR Casey Robinson (novel ‘All This, and Heaven Too’ [1938] by Rachel Lyman Field) CAST Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Jeffrey Lynn, Barbara O’Neil, Virginia Weidler, Cora Sue Collins (Louise)

BLOOD AND SAND (20th Century Fox, 1941) DIR Rouben Mamoulian PROD Darryl F. Zanuck SCR Jo Swerling (novel ‘Sangre y arena’ [1908] by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez) CAST Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, Alla Nazimova, Anrthony Quinn, John Carradine, Lynn Bari, Cora Sue Collins (Encarnacion [Lynn Bari] as a child)

GET HELP TO LOVE (Universal, 1942) DIR Charles Lamont SCR Jay Dratler (story by M.M. Musselman) CAST Gloria Jean, Donald O’Connor, Jane Frazee, Robert Paige, Cora Sue Collins (Elaine)

JOHNNY DOUGHBOY (Republic, 1942) DIR John H. Auer SCR Lawrence Kimble (story by Frederick Kohner) CAST Jane Withers, Henry Wilcoxon, William Demarest, Ruth Donnelly, Etta McDaniel, Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer, Cora Sue Collins (uncredited)

YOUTH ON TRIAL (Columbia, 1945) DIR Oscar Boetticher, Jr. PROD Ted Richmond SCR Michel Jacoby CAST Cora Sue Collins (Cam Chandler), David Reed, Eric Sinclair, Georgia Bayes, Robert Williams

ROUGHLY SPEAKING (Warner Bros., 1945) DIR Michael Curtiz PROD Henry Blanke SCR Louise Randall Pierson (also novel ‘Roughly Seaking’ [1943]) CAST Rosalind Russell, Jack Carson, Robert Hutton, Jean Sullivan, Donald Woods, Alan Hale, Cora Sue Collins (Elinor as a girl)

WEEK-END AT THE WALDORF (MGM, 1945) DIR Robert Z. Leonard PROD Arthur Hornblow, Jr. SCR Sam Spewack, Bella Spewack (novel ‘Menschen im Hotel’ [1929] by Vicki Baum; play ‘Menschen im Hotel’ [1930] by Vicki Baum; adaptation and play ‘Grand Hotel’ [1930] by William A. Drake) CAST Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Edward Arnold, Robert Benchley, Keenan Wynn, Xavier Cugat,  Cora Sue Collins (Jane)