Julie Haydon (born Donella Donaldson, June 10, 1910 â€" December 24,
1994) was an American Broadway, film and television actress who
received second billing as the female lead in the Ben Hechtâ€"Charles
MacArthur 1935 film vehicle for Noel Coward, The Scoundrel. After her
Hollywood career ended in 1937, she turned to the theatre, originating
the roles of Kitty Duval in The Time of Your Life (1939) and Laura
Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie (1945).Born in the Chicago suburb of
Oak Park, to Orin Donaldson, a newspaper publisher, and Ella Horton,
Haydon began her acting career when she was 19, touring with Minnie
Maddern Fiske in Mrs. Bumstead Leigh. Within two years, she played
Ophelia in a production of Hamlet at the Hollywood Playhouse.Shortly
after, she began appearing in films, in 1931. Her first film, in which
she was billed under her birth name, was The Great Meadow, a Johnny
Mack Brown Western drama made by MGM. In 1932, she signed with RKO,
and her first major role came that year in The Conquerors, directed by
William Wellman Her most notable performance came in 1935's The
Scoundrel playing opposite Noël Coward, but, despite a new contract
with MGM, only a few more films were to come in her short career,
including A Family Affair (1937), the initial movie in the Andy Hardy
series.Some have held that it was Haydon and not Fay Wray who provided
the heroine's bone-chilling screams in 1933's King Kong, but this
claim is disputed.
1994) was an American Broadway, film and television actress who
received second billing as the female lead in the Ben Hechtâ€"Charles
MacArthur 1935 film vehicle for Noel Coward, The Scoundrel. After her
Hollywood career ended in 1937, she turned to the theatre, originating
the roles of Kitty Duval in The Time of Your Life (1939) and Laura
Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie (1945).Born in the Chicago suburb of
Oak Park, to Orin Donaldson, a newspaper publisher, and Ella Horton,
Haydon began her acting career when she was 19, touring with Minnie
Maddern Fiske in Mrs. Bumstead Leigh. Within two years, she played
Ophelia in a production of Hamlet at the Hollywood Playhouse.Shortly
after, she began appearing in films, in 1931. Her first film, in which
she was billed under her birth name, was The Great Meadow, a Johnny
Mack Brown Western drama made by MGM. In 1932, she signed with RKO,
and her first major role came that year in The Conquerors, directed by
William Wellman Her most notable performance came in 1935's The
Scoundrel playing opposite Noël Coward, but, despite a new contract
with MGM, only a few more films were to come in her short career,
including A Family Affair (1937), the initial movie in the Andy Hardy
series.Some have held that it was Haydon and not Fay Wray who provided
the heroine's bone-chilling screams in 1933's King Kong, but this
claim is disputed.
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