Cecilia Parker

Cecilia Parker (April 26, 1914 – July 25, 1993) was a Canadian-American film actress. She was best known for portraying Marian Hardy, the sister of Andy Hardy, in twelve films of the Andy Hardy series.

Early life Cecilia Parker was born in Fort William, Ontario, Canada on April 26, 1914, to parents Naudy Anna and Thomas J. Parker. When World War I began, she went with her parents to England, and he joined the British Army. After the war ended, the family returned to Fort William, where they remained until she was 9 years old. Then they moved to Los Angeles, California. She graduated from Immaculate Heart High School

Career Parker worked in films as an extra and did bit parts until at one point a casting directer singled her out from a group of extras for a screen test. As a result, Parker starred with Tom Tyler and Carmelita Geraghty in a 1932–1933 movie serial produced by Universal Pictures entitled Jungle Mystery. In July 1933, she was chosen to play the heroine in the Ken Maynard western, The Trail Drive (1933). That same year, she was John Wayne's leading lady in one of the first singing cowboy movies, Riders of Destiny, and also appeared in Rainbow Ranch. Another serial in which she appeared was The Lost Jungle (1934).

After playing the sister of Greta Garbo in 1934's The Painted Veil, Parker signed a long-term contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She was in the original Hardy film, A Family Affair, in 1937. Mickey Rooney played Andy Hardy in the series, supported by Lewis Stone, Fay Holden and Parker portraying his family members, with Ann Rutherford as his sweetheart. Parker's character appeared in 12 of the 16 films, and her romances were a recurring feature of the series.

Parker retired from acting after the film Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942). She and her husband operated a real estate business in Ventura, California, from 1946 to 1989.

Though her Marian Hardy character was absent from the last two Andy Hardy films of the 1940s, Parker briefly returned to acting for the last Andy Hardy movie, 1958's Andy Hardy Comes Home; the attempt to revive and update the series was not a success. She made one last screen appearance, in a 1984 television adaptation of the novel Pudd'nhead Wilson, on the anthology series American Playhouse.

Personal life Parker's sister, Linda, was an actress who appeared in a number of uncredited roles in the early 1930s. Both sisters once tested for the same part in David Copperfield. Parker was a close friend of actress Anne Shirley; during the mid-1930s the two kept a standing dinner date on Thursday nights.

On June 1, 1938, (or Dick Baldwin) in Ventura, California. She became a naturalized citizen on April 26, 1940.

Death On July 25, 1993, Parker died age of 79, after what The New York Times called "a long illness".