Bonita Granville

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Bonita Granville

Bonita Granville (February 2, 1923 – October 11, 1988) was an Oscar-nominated American film actress and television producer.

[edit] Early life

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Granville was the daughter of stage actors, and made her film debut at the age of nine in Westward Passage (1933). Over the next couple of years she played uncredited supporting roles in such films as Little Women (1933) and Anne of Green Gables (1934) before playing the role of Mary in the film adaptation of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. Renamed These Three, it told the story of three adults (played by Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, and Joel McCrea) who find their lives almost destroyed by the malicious lies of an attention seeking child. As that child, Granville was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Despite this success, the next few years brought her few opportunities to build her career although she continued to work. In 1938 she played the girl-detective Nancy Drew for the first time. The film was a success and Granville reprised her role in three further films.

[edit] Later career

As a young adult, she was once again cast in supporting roles, often in prestigious films such as Now, Voyager (1942) as well as two Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney. She is also remembered for her starring role in the World War II anti-Nazism film Hitler's Children (1943).

Her career gradually began to fade by the mid 1940s, and in 1947 she married Jack Wrather who had produced some of her films.

He bought the rights to both The Lone Ranger and Lassie characters and Granville worked as a producer for several film and television productions featuring these characters. She appeared in the film version of The Lone Ranger in 1956, and made her final screen appearance in a cameo role in The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981).

The couple remained married until Wrather's death in 1984. Granville died four years later of lung cancer in Santa Monica, California, aged 65.

Bonita Granville has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to Motion Pictures, at 6607 Hollywood Boulevard. The Granville's Steak House in the Disneyland Hotel, built while she and Jack Wrather owned the property, still bears her name.