Charlotte Henry

Charlotte Virginia Henry (March 3, 1914 – April 11, 1980) was an American actress born in Brooklyn, New York, to Robert Emmett Henry and Charlotte Ann Sayers Henry. She developed an early fascination with the theatre and began modelling at a young age before pursuing a stage career.

Henry made her Broadway debut while still a teenager, appearing in the play Courage in 1928 at age 14. Her Broadway career continued through 1931 and included an appearance in the play Hobo. The following year after her Broadway debut, her mother took her to Hollywood, where Henry repeated her role in the film adaptation of Courage (1930). While in Hollywood, she enrolled at Lawlors, a school for professional children, where her classmates included Jackie Cooper, Frankie Darro, Mickey Rooney, Anita Louise, and Betty Grable. Junior Durkin, a castmate from Courage, recommended her for a production at the Pasadena Playhouse. She subsequently appeared in Huckleberry Finn (1931) and Lena Rivers (1932).

Henry is best known for her film roles as Alice in the 1933 production of Alice in Wonderland and in Babes in Toyland (1934). In 1933 she also appeared in Man Hunt as Josie Woodward. She later starred in the Frank Buck serial Jungle Menace (1937), in which director Harry L. Fraser documented a scene involving a boa constrictor attacking Henry's character Dorothy, who had been tied hand and foot by the film's villain.

Henry acknowledged that her early success as a child actress left her typecast, making it difficult to secure serious adult roles in film. The resulting scarcity of film work led her to perform in stage productions through the Federal Theatre Project.

In her later years, Henry relocated from Hollywood to San Diego, where she operated an employment agency alongside her mother. She subsequently served for fifteen years as executive secretary to Charles F. Buddy, the Roman Catholic Bishop of San Diego. She married Dr. James Dempsey and continued acting in stage productions at the San Diego Old Globe Theatre. Henry died of cancer on April 11, 1980, at age 66. Her obituary appeared in the San Diego Union, and she was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery.