Nancy Welford (May 31, 1904 – September 30, 1991), also known as Christine Welford, was a British-born American actress in the early sound film era. The daughter of actress Ada Loftus and actor Dallas Welford, she was born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England and came to the United States when she was six years old. Welford's stage debut came as a member of the ensemble for ''Mimic World''. As early as 1921, she was active in vaudeville. In 1922 she appeared at the

Fulton Theatre The Fulton Theatre was a Broadway theatre located at 210 West 46th Street in Manhattan, New York City, that was opened in 1911. It was renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre in 1955. The theatre was demolished in 1982. Since the former Little Theatre be ...

on Broadway in the musical '' Orange Blossoms'' by

Victor Herbert Victor August Herbert (February 1, 1859 – May 26, 1924) was an American composer, cellist and conductor of English and Irish ancestry and German training. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is be ...

. In 1923, a caption of a photograph in the ''

New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...

'' described her as the prima donna of a musical comedy and noted, "She has come up from the chorus and come to stay." She next joined the

Gallagher and Shean Gallagher & Shean was a highly successful musical comedy double act in vaudeville and on Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s, consisting of Ed Gallagher (1873–1929) and Al Shean (1868–1949); Shean was the maternal uncle of the Marx Brothers. C ...

duo in their performances. In 1926, Welford starred in ''Nancy'', a musical for which she was the inspiration. She acted in five films between 1929 and 1933. She is probably today mostly known for starring in the 1929

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...

musical ''

Gold Diggers of Broadway ''Gold Diggers of Broadway'' is a 1929 American pre-Code musical comedy film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Winnie Lightner and Nick Lucas. Distributed by Warner Bros., the film is the second all-talking, all-Technicolor feature-length fi ...

'', which was the second all color-all talking feature ever made. Today, ''Gold Diggers of Broadway'' is a

lost film A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress. Conditions During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...

with only 2 surviving reels. On October 24, 1924, Welford married film director F. Heath Cobb in Cleveland, Ohio. Her parents learned of the marriage about a month later, prompting her father to say, "I don't believe it", and putting her mother under a doctor's care at her home. She married Henry C. Morris in 1945; he preceded her in death in 1985. Welford died in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

Filmography

* ''

'' (1929) as Jerry * '' The Phantom of the House'' (1929) as Dorothy Milburn * ''

The Jazz Cinderella ''The Jazz Cinderella'' is a 1930 American romantic drama film directed by Scott Pembroke and starring Myrna Loy, Jason Robards Sr. and Nancy Welford.Leider p.323 In Britain it was released under the alternative title of ''Love Is Like That''. ...

'' (1930) as Patricia Murray * ''

A Safe Affair ''A Safe Affair'' is a 1931 British crime film directed by Herbert Wynne and starring Franklin Dyall, Connie Emerald and Douglas Jefferies. It was a quota quickie made at the Nettlefold Studios in Walton-upon-Thames, and distributed by the Holl ...

'' (1931) as Mary Bolton * '' Yours Sincerely'' (1933) as Betty Braley

References

External links

* * * Michael G. Morris
"She's Just a Baby"
''Gershwin 100'' (March 25, 2021), a blog post about Welford 1904 births 1991 deaths American film actresses American silent film actresses 20th-century American actresses English film actresses English silent film actresses English stage actresses British emigrants to the United States Actresses from London 20th-century English actresses {{US-theat-actor-1900s-stub