Lottice Howell

Lottice Howell (November 14, 1897 – October 24, 1982) was an American actress and coloratura soprano recognized for her performances in popular and semi-classical music. Born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, she was raised in Moundville, Alabama, where her father was a prominent figure in the lumber and cotton industries. Howell completed her secondary education at Moundville Normal High School before earning a degree from the Woman's College of Alabama. Her involvement in stage productions during her college years sparked her interest in performing, and she subsequently taught voice at the institution after graduating.

Howell pursued musical training in New York, though financial difficulties temporarily redirected her to a teaching position at a school in Georgia. She eventually returned to New York to establish her professional career, making her performance debut on July 10, 1921, at the Strand Theater, where she sang as part of the stage program accompanying the day's film screening. Between 1922 and 1923, she took the lead role in a national touring production of Mozart's The Impresario.

Her Broadway career spanned 1926 to 1927 and included two productions. She appeared as Mugette in Deep River in 1926 and as Virginia Shrivell in Bye, Bye, Bonnie in 1927. During this period she also served for a season as prima donna in a production of My Maryland.

In February 1929, Howell transitioned into vaudeville, and by October of that year she had signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her film debut came in In Gay Madrid in 1930, followed by an appearance in Free and Easy the same year. In the early 1930s she performed at the London Palladium. Finding film work unsatisfying due to the unproductive time it required, she returned to vaudeville. In 1942, Howell retired from entertaining entirely and resettled at her family's home in Alabama, where she learned to manage crops and cattle on the family farm and engaged in community work including service with the Red Cross. She lived privately until her death on October 24, 1982. In 1994, she was inducted posthumously into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame.