Junior Durkin

 Junior Durkin was born Trent Bernard Durkin on July 2, 1915 in New York, NY to hotel owner, Bernard Durkin and actress Florence "Molly" Edwards. He had two older sisters, Gertrude Durkin and Grace Durkin. His father deserted the family while Junior was a toddler and his mother groomed her children to go on the stage. Durkin first set foot on the stage at age 2 1/2 and he was continually working, sometimes in the same plays as his sisters or touring in vaudeville. In 1930, his mother died and he and his sisters traveled to Hollywood to test for the new talkies. He was cast in Warner Brothers' domestic melodrama, "Recaptured Love" 1930 and then he was teamed with child star Mitzi Green in "Santa Fe Trail" 1930 starring Richard Arlen and he received positive notices. Junior tested for the role of Huckleberry Finn and he was given it to star with his pal, Jackie Coogan who was his age in "Tom Sawyer" 1930 and Mitzi Green was cast as Becky Thatcher. The film was enthusiastically received and Junior's down home manners along with a shy ingratiating smile pleased audiences so much, he was cast in the titular role for "Huckleberry Finn" 1931 along with Coogan and Mitzi Green reprising their roles. He was next cast in the drama, "Hell's House" 1932 starring Pat O'Brien and Bette Davis then in "Man Hunt" as a charming boy sleuth who gets involved in murder and robbery. He retirned to the stage at the Pasadena Playhouse in "Growing Pains" which moved to Broadway but only ran for 29 Performances in November 1933. Wanting to be perceived as an adult, he dropped "Junior" from his name and was billed as Trent Durkin in the Richard Arlen and Ida Lupino comedy, "Ready For Love" 1934 and "Big Hearted Herbert" 1934 with Guy Kibbee and Louisa May Alcott's "Little Men" 1934 with Dickie Moore, Frankie Darro, Tommy Bupp, and Cora Sue Collins. RKO's "Chasing Yesterday" 1935 with Anne Shirley, O.P. Heggie, and Helen Westley would be his last film and it would be released posthumously. He was to have played 'Tommy' in the highly anticipated screen adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's, "Ah, Wilderness" 1935, but he chose to spend some time at the Coogan Ranch near San Diego, instead. One day, on the way back to the ranch from a hunting expedition in Jackie's new car, Jackie Coogan, the driver - Jackie's father, actor-writer Robert J. Horner, and ranch foreman Charles Jones and Junior Durkin, swerved to avoid an oncoming car and lost control and crashed into a ravine overturning more than seven times. Jackie Coogan was the only survivor of the accident. Junior Durkin was 19. --DLC

"At the time, Durkin was living with agent Henry Willson, and they were rumored to be lovers.[2] In a 2013 interview, former child star Diana Serra Cary (known as Baby Peggy), a close friend of Durkin, said, "It would not surprise me to know that Trent was gay. However, in the early thirties it would have been suicidal for such a promising young actor to come out of the closet. Especially without the protection of a strong producer, or already under contract to MGM, with studio head Louis B. Mayer seriously invested in his future success as a leading man." Bron : Wikepedia.