Linda Watkins

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From Wikipedia

Linda Watkins (born May 23, 1908 - October 31, 1976) was an

actress in theater, motion pictures, and television. She was born Linda Mathews

Watkins in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Gardiner and Elizabeth R.

(Mathews) Watkins.

At the age of sixteen Watkins' parents sent her to study at

the Theatre Guild. After six months she began to appear with the guild's summer

repertory program in Scarborough, New York. Instead of finishing her studies at

the guild, she pursued a job at the office of Charles Hopkins. When he asked

Watkins if she preferred playing comedy or drama, she replied,

"Tragedy." He was casting for a comedy production and Watkins was

offered the lead role

She debuted in movies in Sob Sister (1931), a film in which

she plays a female reporter. Reviewer Muriel Babcock remarked that Watkins

"is cool, blond, poised, good to look upon. She plays the title role with

admirable restraint and gives every evidence of being a comer in films."

Her second movie was Good Sport (1931), a screen adaptation

of a story by William J. Hurlbut. Produced by the Fox Film Company, Watkins

depicts Marilyn Parker, a naive wife caught up in a love triangle. Her co-stars

were Alan Dinehart and John Boles. She appeared in Charlie Chan's Chance, a

lost 1932 film starring Warner Oland as the famous detective. Edmund Lowe and

Watkins co-starred in Cheaters at Play (1932). Directed for Fox by Kenneth

MacKenna, the motion picture was adapted from a story by Gene Towne. In 1938,

Watkins also screen tested for the part of Scarlet O'Hara in the forthcoming

Gone With The Wind (1939), however she was not selected.

Watkins married film boards' lawyer, Gabriel L. Hess, at the

Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, on January 28, 1932. Hess was attorney for Will

Hays and the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. He got his

start in the movie business with Samuel Goldwyn and Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Watkins was a close friend of Hess' first wife, Katherine Hawley. She was one of

the first to send sympathy when Hawley was thrown from a horse and killed.

Watkins and Hess had a son, Adam Hess, who was an attorney and secretary for

the Aetna until his death in 1969; he left three daughters, Elizabeth, Faye,

and Emily, the only grandchildren of Watkins. Watkins obtained her release from

Fox prior to her marriage. A later romance with actor Tom Drake ended in 1959.

Linda Watkins died in Los Angeles in 1976.

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