1930s child star Marilyn Knowlden, 99, died on Sept. 15. From her first movie role at age five into the early 1940s, Knowlden appeared in more than 30 films, her costars including Warner Baxter (The Cisco Kid), Ruth Chatterton (Once a Lady), Clara Bow (Call Her Savage), Katharine Hepburn (Little Women), W.C. Fields (David Copperfield), Shirley Temple (Just Around the Corner), Norma Shearer (Marie Antoinette), and James Cagney (Angels with Dirty Faces), as well as roles in Show Boat, Les Miserables, Imitation of Life, All This and Heaven Too, and Broadway Rhythm. Knowlden later married, had children, did the convention circuit, and wrote her memoirs, Little Girl in Big Pictures. Knowlden was not a bitter, tattered ex-child star. “I’ve had an amazing and wonderful life,” she posted on her website. “It started with having fabulous parents . . . they took me for an interview for a Hollywood movie. I got the part! And the rest, as they say, is history. I then proceeded to have an incredible Hollywood experience that led me to some of the top movies produced at the time. Being so young, I didn’t always understand what was going on, but I did know that it was so much fun!”
