Mitzi Green

Career Green was often featured in Paramount's early talkies, as an outspoken and mischievous little girl alongside studio stars Clara Bow, Jack Oakie, Ed Wynn, Leon Errol, and Edna May Oliver among others. Green was a gifted mimic and her celebrity imitations were often worked into the films. She was cast (against type) opposite Jackie Coogan in two Mark Twain adaptations, Tom Sawyer (1930) and Huckleberry Finn (1931). Paramount released her in 1931, as she was rapidly outgrowing child roles.

She moved to RKO for two pictures, both adaptations of works from other media. She played the title role in Little Orphan Annie (1932), based on the popular comic strip, with Edgar Kennedy as Daddy Warbucks. She also appeared as the precocious kid sister in Girl Crazy (1932), the first movie version of the George Gershwin-Ira Gershwin stage musical. Green brightened the film with surprising impersonations of George Arliss and her former co-star Edna May Oliver.

At the age of 14, she played a soubrette role in Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (1934), produced independently by Edward Small for United Artists release. It did not result in further film offers, and Green left Hollywood.

She went on to Broadway, where she starred in the original production of Rodgers and Hart's Babes in Arms (1937). Two of Green's numbers in the musical were "My Funny Valentine," which would later become a jazz standard in many cover recordings and performances, and "The Lady Is a Tramp".

Green made one more film in 1940 (Santa Fe Trail with Errol Flynn), then went back to stage and nightclub work, including Walk with Music by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, and the Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical Billion Dollar Baby. Green married Broadway (and later movie and TV) director Joseph Pevney and retired to raise a family. At age 31 she returned briefly to the screen opposite Abbott and Costello in Lost in Alaska (1952) and in Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952), co-starring another Mitzi—Mitzi Gaynor.

In 1955, she starred with Virginia Gibson and Gordon Jones in the short-lived NBC TV sitcom So This Is Hollywood, in the role of Queenie Dugan, a high-spirited stuntwoman.

After a brief stint on the nightclub circuit, Green retired again, although she did appear in summer stock and dinner theater around the Los Angeles area thereafter, and she appeared occasionally as a guest on talk shows.

On radio, Green starred in Passport to Romance, a program "spiced with music and comedy", which premiered on the Mutual Broadcasting System on April 5, 1946.

Recognition For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Green received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6430 Hollywood Blvd.

Personal life and death Green married film director Joseph Pevney. They had four children including son Jeff, who performed in the film Gypsy (1962).

Partial filmography Year Film Role Director Notes 1929 The Marriage Playground Zinnie Wheater Lothar Mendes 1930 Honey Doris Wesley Ruggles 1930 Paramount on Parade Herself – Episode 'Park in Paris' Edmund Goulding and 10 other directors 1930 Love Among the Millionaires Penelope 'Penny' Whipple Frank Tuttle 1930 The Santa Fe Trail Emily Edwin H. Knopf 1930 Tom Sawyer Becky Thatcher John Cromwell 1930 Follow the Leader Albert Parker 1931 Finn and Hattie Mildred Haddock Norman Taurog 1931 Skippy Eloise Norman Taurog 1931 Dude Ranch Alice Merridew Frank Tuttle 1931 Newly Rich Daisy Tate Norman Taurog 1931 Huckleberry Finn Becky Thatcher Norman Taurog 1931 The Slippery Pearls Herself William C. McGann 1932 Girl Crazy Tessie Deegan William A. Seiter 1932 Little Orphan Annie Annie Charles Kerr (assistant) 1934 Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round Mitzi Benjamin Stoloff 1940 Santa Fe Trail Girl at Wedding (uncredited) Michael Curtiz 1952 Lost in Alaska Rosette Jean Yarbrough 1952 Bloodhounds of Broadway '52nd Tessie' Sammis Harmon Jones

Stage Babes in Arms (1937) Walk with Music (1940) Let Freedom Sing (1942) Billion Dollar Baby (1945)