Florence Davenport Rice

 Florence Davenport Rice (February 14, 1907 – February 23, 1974)

Rice became an actress during the early 1930s and, after several Broadway roles, eventually made her way to Hollywood, where she acted in almost fifty films between 1934 and 1943. Blonde, pretty, and wholesome, Rice was cast as the reliable girlfriend in several films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM gradually provided her with more substantial roles, occasionally in prestige productions. Rice never became a major figure in films, but she performed in a number of screen pairings with Robert Young. Her most widely seen performances were in Double Wedding (1937), in which she was billed third in the cast credits behind William Powell and Myrna Loy, Sweethearts (1938) with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and The Marx Brothers film At The Circus (1939). During the 1940s the quality of her roles steadily decreased and in 1947 she retired. She was married four times. On February 23, 1974, Rice died in Honolulu from lung cancer at age 67. Her body was cremated.