Friday, December 28, 2012

Stars of Public Domain: Marjorie Riordan in Pursuit to Algiers, South of Monterey and The Hoodlum


Born in D.C. but raised in Milwaukee, WI, Marjorie Riordan did a bit of modeling before being awarded a featured role in the women-at-war melodrama Parachute Nurse(1942). She then played Lon McAllister's girl in the narrative section of the all-star extravaganza Stage Door Canteen (1943), earning a contract with independent producer Sol Lesser for her troubles. Lesser turned right around and sold her off to Warner Bros. where she was cast as Bette Davis' daughter in Mr. Skeffington (1944), quite a studio debut, really, for a novice ingenue. But then the powers at be failed to provide a follow-up and she was much busier at the real-life Hollywood Canteen, where starlets and movie stars alike entertained the servicemen. She met a marine major there, fell in love and got married. Warner did not take kindly to this act of rebellion, however, and let her go. She did Universal's Pursuit to Algiers (1945), a sea-faring edition of the studio's now patented Sherlock Holmes series, in which she played the ingenue and got to sing no less than threee songs, proving once and for all that Hollywood never did right for our Marjorie. It was supporting roles thereafter and she was briefly in the way of evil tax collector Harry Woods in South of Monterey (1947), a Cisco Kid entry from Monogram. Then there was The Hoodlum (1951), where she played a bank clerk conned into spilling the beans of the bank's activities to charming would-be robber Lawrence Tierney. Marjorie earned prominent billing but had merely a couple of scenes and her screen career had reached a dead end. Not that she seemed to have cared all that much; instead of toiling in lower-bracket crime thrillers and television series fare, she went back to gradate school to study speech therapy and clinical psychology, later becoming a licensed therapist. Marjorie Riordan succumbed to breat cancer in May of 1972, leaving her second husband and their young son. She was 64.

12 comments:

  1. Another place says she died in.1984

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was her second husband (a clinical therapist) who died in 1972. She died a widow in 1984 (breast cancer).

    ReplyDelete
  3. She died March 8, 1984, born Jan 24,1921. She was 63.

    ReplyDelete
  4. In "Pursuit to Algiers" she was very believable. All of her actions seemed perfectly natural and credible.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes, a beautiful lady. Good for you Marjorie!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Not only physical beauty but a lovely, resonant singing voice along with natural acting ability.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Could any body tell me how to find the full song in the film Pursuit to Algeris
    "Cross my Heart"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you Found the Song if so please Share with me also @mathewscad@gmail i have been looking for more than 6 years

      Delete
  8. i want this song very badly
    have been searching for 2 years still not found
    please help
    Please help

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you Found the Song if so please Share with me also @mathewscad@gmail i have been looking for more than 6 years

      Delete
  9. Well I think I would like to hear from her son and other relatives what she was like in real life-loved her acting and singing!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I hoped the singing voice we heard in Pursuit to Algiers was actually Marjorie's voice, and apparently it was. I've had a crush on her for decades.

    ReplyDelete