Ona Munson

Ona Munson, born Owena Elizabeth Wolcott on June 16, 1903, in Albany, Oregon, was an American actress whose career in film, stage, and radio spanned more than three decades. The last of four children born to Sally Gore Wolcott and Owen Parrett Wolcott, she was named after her father; her three elder siblings had all died in infancy. Her family relocated from Albany to Portland when she was two years old, and she was raised in the city's southeast section. Her father worked as a real estate agent and her mother as a milliner. Munson began dancing lessons at age four and later received instruction in French, swimming, and horseback riding. She attended the Catlin Gabel School, then known as Miss Catlin's School, where she developed a particular interest in English literature. Of French-Canadian heritage through her paternal grandmother, who had immigrated from Quebec in 1865, Munson performed as an actress and dancer in Portland theatrical productions throughout her late childhood and early teenage years. Around 1917, at age fourteen, she and her mother moved to New York City so that she could pursue a professional stage career.

Munson made her Broadway debut in 1919 in a minor role in George White's Scandals, followed that same year by a supporting part in Twinkle, Twinkle. In 1920, she was living with her mother in a hotel on the Upper West Side while training in Russian ballet for approximately one year. In 1922, vaudevillian Gus Edwards recruited her to perform in The Song Revue, which toured the Orpheum circuit throughout the United States for 52 weeks. Following the tour, Munson and her mother traveled to Europe, where she continued her education. In 1925, she was cast in the title role of Nanette in No, No, Nanette, which ran for 27 weeks at the Garrick Theatre in Philadelphia. The following year she reprised the role in the original Broadway production, replacing Louise Groody. In 1927 she portrayed the title character in Manhattan Mary, and in 1928 she appeared in the original Broadway production of Hold Everything!, a musical in which she introduced the song "You're the Cream in My Coffee." Over the course of her Broadway career, which extended from 1919 to 1952, she appeared in nine productions, including Hold Your Horses, Petticoat Fever, the Henrik Ibsen play Ghosts, and First Lady.

Munson moved to Los Angeles in 1930 and appeared in the Warner Bros. film Going Wild, which had originally been conceived as a musical before its numbers were removed prior to release. The following year she appeared in The Hot Heiress alongside Ben Lyon, in which she performed several songs, as well as in Broadminded and Five Star Final. After completing those films she returned to New York and resumed her theater career, appearing in Hold Your Horses in 1933, followed by both Petticoat Fever and Ghosts in 1935. In Ghosts, an adaptation of Ibsen's play, she portrayed Regina Engstrand. During rehearsals for that production she had a brief romantic affair with co-star Alla Nazimova, which ended before the play's premiere; co-star Harry Ellerbe later stated that the two had parted amicably. Around 1933, Munson also began performing regularly in radio dramas, averaging twelve programs per week, among them Rich Man's Darling, David Harum, Cavalcade of America, The March of Time, and Manhattan Merry-Go-Round.

Munson returned to Los Angeles in 1938, initially taking a minor part in His Exciting Night and an uncredited role in Dramatic School. Her career changed significantly when David O. Selznick cast her as madam Belle Watling in Gone with the Wind, released in 1939. Selznick had first announced Mae West for the role, but both West and Tallulah Bankhead declined it as too small. Munson, freckled and slight in build, was physically unlike the voluptuous Belle, yet Selznick chose her for the part. The role became the most celebrated of her career and simultaneously constrained it; for the remainder of her working life she was typecast in similar characters. In 1941, Josef von Sternberg cast her as Mother Gin Sling, a Chinese casino owner of dubious repute, in The Shanghai Gesture. The role required extensive yellowface makeup that rendered her, by some accounts, unrecognizable. That same year she returned to radio, performing as Lorelei opposite Edward G. Robinson on Big Town. Her final feature film appearance came in The Red House in 1947, a psychological horror film in which she co-starred with Edward G. Robinson, Rory Calhoun, and Julie London. By 1949 she had semi-retired from acting. Over the course of her film career she appeared in 20 feature films.

On July 16, 1926, Munson married actor Edward Buzzell in New York City; the marriage lasted six years before their divorce in 1931. In 1950 she married painter Eugene Berman, her second husband. She also had several documented affairs with women, including Alla Nazimova and playwright Mercedes de Acosta, with whom she became involved in 1940 while working for Republic Pictures in Los Angeles. Some commentators have characterized her marriages as lavender marriages, suggesting they concealed her bisexuality. By the mid-1950s, Munson was experiencing health complications following an unspecified surgical procedure and had been frequently using barbiturates. On February 11, 1955, Berman found her dead in their Manhattan apartment; she had died by suicide via a barbiturate overdose. She was 51 years old.