Junior Durkin

Trent Bernard Durkin, known professionally as Junior Durkin, was an American stage and film actor born in New York City on July 2, 1915. His career spanned both Broadway and Hollywood before his death on May 4, 1935, at the age of nineteen.

Durkin began his acting career in theater as a child, appearing on Broadway between 1923 and 1933. His stage credits included The Lady, Courage, Growing Pains, and H.M.S. Pinafore.

His transition to film came in 1930, when he was cast as Huckleberry Finn in Tom Sawyer, with Jackie Coogan in the role of Tom Sawyer. He reprised the role of Huckleberry Finn the following year in the 1931 film of the same name, again opposite Coogan. Signed to RKO Radio Pictures, Durkin appeared in a series of comedy-oriented B films that made use of his gangly physical appearance. In 1932 he co-starred in Hell's House alongside Bette Davis, who was then early in her career. As his time at RKO continued, the studio began preparing him for more mature roles. His final film, Chasing Yesterday (1935), starred Anne Shirley, and for that production he was billed under his given name, Trent Durkin.

Durkin died on May 4, 1935, in a car accident approximately fifty miles from San Diego, California. He had been returning from a hunting trip in Mexico with Jackie Coogan, Coogan's father John Henry Coogan Jr., ranch manager Charles Jones, and writer Robert Horner. When an oncoming vehicle forced the driver to swerve, the car left the road and rolled repeatedly before coming to rest in a creek bed. Jackie Coogan was the sole survivor of the crash. Durkin was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

At the time of his death, Durkin was living with agent Henry Willson, and the two were rumored to be in a romantic relationship. In a 2013 interview, former child star Diana Serra Cary, known as Baby Peggy and a close friend of Durkin, stated that his being gay would not have surprised her, while noting that openly acknowledging such a fact in the early 1930s would have been professionally devastating for a young actor without the backing of a major studio.