Page County IA Archives Obituaries.....Maxwell, Marilyn 1972
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Nettie Mae Lucas http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00015.html#0003602 July 17, 2005, 12:45 pm

Unknown Newspaper
Marilyn Maxwell
"Actress"
1923 - 1972
Actress Marilyn Maxwell, 49, who was born in Clarinda died Monday at her home in
Beverly Hills, Calif. Her 15 year-old son, Matthew, discovered her body when he
returned from school. Authorities tentatively listed the cause of death as a
heart attack and ordered an autopsy. She had been treated recently for high
blood pressure and pulmonary disease, police said. 
She was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Harry E. Maxwell, who groomed her
to be an actress from the time she was a child. Miss Maxwell's show business
career began when she was a child under the tutelage of her piano-teacher
mother, Mrs. Harry E. Maxwell of Clarinda. After leaving Clarinda when Marilyn
was five, Mrs. Maxwell toured the country as an accompanist. Harry Maxwell died
in 1950 at Tabor, where he farmed. Mrs. Maxwell died in 1951. Miss Maxwell
missed the funerals of both her parents because she was on USO tours for
American servicemen around the world. 
With her mother's encouragement, Miss Maxwell became a nightclub singer at the
Columbia Club in Indianapolis, Ind., while in high school. There, Buddy Rogers
saw her and hired her as a singer for his band. Later, she sang with the band of
Ted Weems, who paid for her acting lessons at the Pasadena playhouse.
Miss Maxwell made her first movie in 1942, appearing in "Stand By For Action"
with Robert Taylor. She appeared with Van Johnson and Lionel Barrymore in
several of the Dr. Gillespie movies and played opposite Bob Hope in "The Lemon
Drop Kid," Kirk Douglas in "Champion," Mickey Rooney in "Summer Holiday," Clark
Gable in "Key To the City," and George Raft in "Race Street." She was also proud
of being straight woman for comedians such as Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis and Jack Benny.
 She toured with some of them in shows for servicemen overseas in World War II
and the Korean War. Miss Maxwell was divorced three times.
 Survivors in addition to her son include a brother, Leland Maxwell, who with
his wife flew to California from their Armonk, NY, home. A brother, Paul, and
both parents preceded her in death. 
Jerry Davis, father of Matthew, was in Mexico on television tour at time of
Marilyn's death. When her mother died, she visited Clarinda relatives in 1951.
She was cousin of Fred and Ben Tomlinson, Mrs. Mildred Swanson, Mrs. Fred
McIntyre and Angus McIntosh of the local area. Several of the Tomlinson
relatives are in California and will represent the family at the funeral to be
held Friday at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. Burial will be
there. Mrs. Pearl Newell, Thomas and Frank Tomlinson are among the relatives in
California. 
The family has designated the Marilyn Maxwell scholarship fund, which has been
established in her memory, for memorials. She had been on board of directors of
Young Musicians Foundation, which group created the fund.
 Honorary pallbearers at her funeral: Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and
Jack Benny.


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