Hilda Vaughn | |
---|---|
Born | December 27, 1898 |
Died | December 28, 1957 (aged 59) Baltimore, Maryland |
Alma mater | Vassar College American Academy of Dramatic Arts |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1929–1950 |
Height | 5 ft 5 in (165 cm) |
Hilda Vaughn (December 27, 1898 – December 28, 1957) was an American actress of the stage, film, radio, and television.[1][2]
Hilda Weiller Strouse,[3] the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Eli Strouse, Vaughn attended Vassar College[4][5] and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.[6]
Vaughn frequently played a "pleb", or a commoner, in the films she acted in (waitresses, maids, charwomen, governesses, and saleswomen). A fixture at MGM in the sound era of the early 1930s, she acted in more than 50 films. Her most notable films were 1933's Dinner at Eight where she was memorable as Jean Harlow's blackmailing maid, as well as Today We Live (1933), Chasing Yesterday (1935), and Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940).[7]
She appeared on Broadway, and in 1924 toured as the lead in Rain based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham. Her "smoldering quality" came back to Broadway two years later in The Seed of the Brute at the Little Theatre. She also appeared on Broadway in Glory Hallelujah.[8]
After making several films, Vaughn was part of the Hollywood blacklist. She returned to the stage in 1942 to play the lead in Only the Heart at the American Actors Company. In 1943 she appeared in William Saroyan's Get Away Old Man, followed by several other appearances, including playing the nurse to Judith Anderson's Medea and the mother in The Devil's Disciple by George Bernard Shaw. She was also known for her concert readings of plays.