Rita Johnson

Rita Ann Johnson, born on August 13, 1913, in Worcester, Massachusetts, was an American actress whose career spanned radio, Broadway, and film. The daughter of Lillian Johnson, a single mother, she spent part of her early years working in her mother's lunchroom and selling hot dogs along the Boston-Worcester turnpike. She later pursued formal training at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Before establishing herself on screen, Johnson built a substantial presence in radio. By 1936 she was appearing in as many as ten radio programs per week, and she took on the leading role in the radio drama Joyce Jordan, M.D. Her stage career began in 1935, and she appeared on Broadway in 1937 in Fulton of Oak Falls. Her film career launched that same year, running concurrently with her work in other mediums.

Among her notable screen roles, Johnson played a murderer in the 1941 comedy-fantasy Here Comes Mr. Jordan and a doomed wife in the 1947 RKO film noir They Won't Believe Me. Her film career was significantly curtailed following a serious head trauma she sustained on September 6, 1948, which required brain surgery. She remained in a coma for two weeks, and her recovery took approximately a year, during which she experienced temporary paralysis on her left side and difficulty walking. The circumstances surrounding the injury were never conclusively established; Johnson attributed it to an industrial-grade hair dryer falling on her at her apartment, though gossip columnists including Walter Winchell circulated unsubstantiated suggestions of abuse. Reduced mobility and diminished powers of concentration limited her screen appearances thereafter.

In her personal life, Johnson was married to businessman L. Stanley Kahn; their divorce was granted on June 29, 1943. She subsequently married Edwin Hutzler later that same year, and that marriage ended in divorce in 1946. Johnson struggled with alcoholism throughout her life. She died of a brain hemorrhage on October 31, 1965, at the age of 52.