Marcia Mae Jones

Marcia Mae Jones (August 1, 1924 – September 2, 2007) was an American film and television actress whose prolific career spanned 57 years.

Early years

Jones was the youngest of four children born to actress Freda Jones. All three of her siblings, Margaret, Macon, and Marvin Jones, were also child actors. Their relationship was strained by their unequal status in the film world. "I constantly heard, 'You've got to be quiet; Marcia Mae has to learn her lines.' It was Marcia Mae this and Marcia Mae that. That's where the jealousy from my siblings came from. They blamed me for it, when it was my mother who was doing it."

Career

Jones made her film debut at the age of two in the 1926 film Mannequin. She appeared in films such as King of Jazz (1930), Street Scene (1931), and Night Nurse (1931) before rising to child stardom in the 1930s with roles in The Champ (1931) and, alongside Shirley Temple in Heidi (1937) and The Little Princess (1939). She also starred in films such as The Garden of Allah (1936), These Three (1936), and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938). In the 1937 film Mountain Justice she played Bettie Harkins as seen on TCM.

Jones blossomed into a wide-eyed, blonde, wholesome-looking teenager, and worked steadily in motion pictures through her late teens. She appeared in First Love (1939), in support of Deanna Durbin. In 1940, Monogram Pictures signed her to co-star with Jackie Moran in a few rustic romances; when this series lapsed, both Jones and Moran joined Monogram's popular action-comedy series starring Frankie Darro.

As a young adult, she continued to work in motion pictures, notably in Nine Girls (1944) and Arson, Inc. (1948). Like many familiar faces of the 1940s, she appeared on numerous television programs. In 1951 she appeared as comic foil to Buster Keaton in Keaton's filmed TV series. She went on to work in such top-rated shows as The Cisco Kid, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Peyton Place, and General Hospital. Her last major role was in the Barbra Streisand film The Way We Were in 1973.

Personal life

Jones was married to Robert Chic and had two sons with him. Her second marriage was to television writer Bill Davenport.

Death

On September 2, 2007, Jones died in Woodland Hills, California, of complications of pneumonia. She was 83.