Lynne Carver (born Virginia Reid Sampson, September 13, 1916 – August 12, 1955) was an American film actress. She appeared in more than 40 films between 1934 and 1953.
Early years
Carver was born in
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...
.
[ Her father, Reid Johnson Sampson, was a mining engineer in Arizona and New Mexico for several years preceding ]World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, and he and his family were briefly detained by during one of the Mexican general's raids across the border into the Southwestern US, when Carver was an infant.
The Sampson family were prominent Kentuckians for several generations, where her grandfather, William Sampson, had served as Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court
The Kentucky Supreme Court was created by a 1975 constitutional amendment and is the state supreme court of the U.S. state of Kentucky. Prior to that the Kentucky Court of Appeals was the only appellate court in Kentucky. The Kentucky Court of ...
during the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
.
Her older sister, Marjorie Lee Sampson, followed Virginia to Hollywood and landed a few small parts, but never achieved the status of her sister, and soon moved on.
Career
Carver went to Hollywood at a young age to pursue a career in acting after winning a beauty pageant. Early on she was billed as Virginia Reid with RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...
and can be seen in several musicals as one of the "Goldwyn Girls
The Goldwyn Girls were a musical stock company of female dancers employed by Samuel Goldwyn. Famous actresses, dancers, and models whose career included a stint in the Goldwyn Girls include Lucille Ball, Virginia Bruce, Claire Dodd, Paulette Go ...
". She dated Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...
, briefly, in the 1930s, before moving on to MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
as Lynne Carver where she became a regular in their stable of actresses. In a 1938 interview, she explained her name change by saying, "I wanted to keep some sort of family name ... Finally my father suggested two, Lynn and Craven. I added the 'e' to the first and changed the last one to Carver because we didn't like Craven much."
First playing minor bit parts, Carver eventually moved up to the level of ingenue in a few of her later roles. As her career advanced, she appeared in several films with Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American dancer, choreographer, actor, and singer. He is often called the greatest dancer in Hollywood film history.
Astaire's career in stage, film, and tele ...
and Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starri ...
, and was probably best known for her role as Alice Raymond in the early Dr. Kildare films. She was Barbara in the magical musical production ''Maytime'' in 1937 along with Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy (June 29, 1901 – March 6, 1967) was an American actor and baritone singer who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclub ...
and Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette Anna MacDonald (June 18, 1903 – January 14, 1965) was an American singer and Actor, actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier (''The Love Parade'', ''Love Me Tonight'', ''The Merry Widow (1934 ...
and also appeared with them in ''Bitter Sweet'', a 1940 attempt to recapture the success of ''Maytime''. Two of her better known MGM performances are as Sylvia Bellaire in the 1938 musical comedy film, ''Everybody Sing
''Everybody, Sing!'' is a Philippine Musical film, musical game show created, developed, produced and distributed by ABS-CBN, ABS-CBN Entertainment It was hosted by Vice Ganda. The show aired for first season from June 5 to October 10, 2021, ...
'' starring Allan Jones and Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in '' The ...
, and as Bess, Scrooge's nephew's fiancée, in ''A Christmas Carol
''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas C ...
'' starring Reginald Owen
John Reginald Owen (5 August 1887 – 5 November 1972) was a British actor. He was known for his many roles in British and American films and television programs.
Career
The son of Joseph and Frances Owen, Reginald Owen studied at Sir Herbert ...
as Ebenezer Scrooge. Both films were released in 1938. Her last film for MGM was ''Tennessee Johnson
''Tennessee Johnson'' is a 1942 American film about Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by William Dieterle and written by Milton Gunzburg, Alvin Meyers, John Balderston, and We ...
'' which starred Van Heflin
Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin Jr. (December 13, 1908 – July 23, 1971) was an American theatre, radio and film actor. He played mostly character parts over the course of his film career, but during the 1940s had a string of roles as a leading man. H ...
as the 17th President of the United States. Carver played Martha, the daughter of Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
.
The slowdown of work in Hollywood due to World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
caused her career to stall. During and after the war, she played mostly in Republic westerns with Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye; November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998) was an American singer, actor, and television host. Following early work under his given name, first as co-founder of the Sons of the Pioneers and then acting, the rebra ...
and Johnny Mack Brown
John Brown (September 1, 1904 – November 14, 1974) was an American college football player and film actor billed as John Mack Brown at the height of his screen career. He acted and starred mainly in Western films.
Early life
Born and raise ...
and other more obscure films, but never achieved the level of success she had known earlier.
Personal life
On March 31, 1935, Carver married dentist Ralph McClung in Selma, Alabama. They had divorced by mid-December 1936. She married Nicholas Nayfack
Nicholas Nayfack (January 27, 1909 – March 31, 1958) was an American movie producer whose notable works include '' Forbidden Planet'' and ''The Invisible Boy''. He was the nephew of MGM studio chief Nicholas Schenck and United Artists studio ...
in 1937 and they divorced in 1942. She was married to theatrical agent William Mullaney, lived in New York, and had a busy stage and TV career until 1954.
Death
Carver died at Memorial Hospital in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
after a year-long battle with cancer, on August 12, 1955, aged 38.
Filmography
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carver, Lynne
1916 births
1955 deaths
20th-century American actresses
Actresses from Kentucky
American film actresses
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
People from Cochise County, Arizona