Madeline Hurlock

Madeline Hurlock was born on December 12, 1897, in Federalsburg, Maryland, the daughter of John W. Hurlock, an engineer, and Sallie Hurlock. She was of English and Italian ancestry. After attending a finishing school in Philadelphia, Hurlock performed with a repertory theatre company in that city before pursuing opportunities in New York.

In New York, Hurlock acted and danced in musical comedies at the Century Roof Garden. She made her Broadway debut in 1919 as part of the ensemble cast of The Rose of China. That same year she also appeared in the revue Morris Gest's Midnight Whirl.

Hurlock went on to build a substantial career in silent film. Beginning in 1923, she appeared as one of the Sennett Bathing Beauties in short comedies produced by Mack Sennett, with her first film being Where's My Wandering Boy This Evening? Over the course of her film career she appeared in more than fifty short films, the last of which, Pink Pajamas, was released in 1929. In 1925 she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. Among her film appearances was Duck Soup, one of the early films featuring Laurel and Hardy.

Hurlock was married three times. Her first marriage, to Army Sergeant John S. McGovern, took place on August 4, 1917, in Ellicott City, Maryland, and ended in divorce in 1924. She married playwright Marc Connelly in 1930; Connelly received the Pulitzer Prize that same year for his play The Green Pastures. That marriage ended in divorce in 1935, when Hurlock traveled to Riga to obtain the divorce before marrying playwright Robert E. Sherwood in Budapest later that year. Sherwood, whom Hurlock had met aboard an ocean liner, won the Pulitzer Prize four times during his career and died in 1955. Hurlock survived him and died on April 4, 1989.