Anna Miriam "Queenie" Smith (September 8, 1899 – August 5, 1978) was an American ballet dancer, and a stage, television, and film actress. In later life she became a talent agent. She is best known for her Southern-belle character roles in the W. C. Fields-Bing Crosby film Mississippi (1935) and the Irene Dunne-Allan Jones musical Show Boat (1936); her role as Jimmy Durante's wife in the Christmas perennial The Great Rupert (1950); and for her appearances as The Bowery Boys' Irish landlady (1956–57).
Contents
Life and career
Born Anna Miriam Smith in New York City, on September 8, 1899, Smith was one of at least four (three daughters and one son), born to recently transplanted San Antonians, Emma (née Koenigheim) and Charles Smith.
Smith got an early start, studying at the Metropolitan Opera's ballet school and spent her teen years performing as a dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Company in operas such as Aida, La Traviata, and Faust.
In September 1919, shortly after her 20th birthday, Smith made the transition to musical comedy at New York's Knickerbocker Theatre, making her Broadway debut as Ida Loring in Roly Boly Eyes. Her other Broadway credits included the part of Tillie Olsen in Rudolf Friml's musical Cinders, and roles in Helen of Troy, New York (1923), Sitting Pretty (1924), and The Street Singer (1929). Her last Broadway credit was in 1934, for a two-month run of the play Every Thursday.
She journeyed west to try her luck in motion pictures. After being featured in the Lillian Roth musical featurette Masks and Memories (1934), she was cast as a showboat entertainer in Mississippi. She costarred in the 1936 Universal Pictures film version of Jerome Kern's Show Boat, playing Ellie May Chipley. Smith replaced stage actress Eva Puck, who had starred as Chipley in the 1927 premiere and 1932 revival of Show Boat.
Apart from a single feature film in 1939, she made no screen appearances until 1946, when she began playing character roles on film, and later, television. She was seen in guest shots on many television shows, usually playing feisty old ladies, in The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, A.E.S. Hudson Street, Rhoda, Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, Barney Miller, Mother, Jugs & Speed, Chico and the Man, McMillan & Wife, Love American Style, The Waltons, Here's Lucy, The Funny Side, Hawaii Five-O, The Monkees, The Odd Couple, The Love Boat, Maude, and Little House on the Prairie (in a recurring role as Mrs. Whipple).
Smith was a teacher and mentor to many young actors. She taught at the Hollywood Professional School and was the director for the training program at Melodyland Theater in Anaheim, California, during the 1960s. She also established a talent agency.
She worked until the year of her death, her last role being Elsie in the Chevy Chase-Goldie Hawn film Foul Play. (1978).
Personal life and death
Smith married drama critic Robert Garland on May 17, 1931. They were divorced on April 30, 1937. She died of cancer at age 78.
Television
She played Mrs Whipple in the Little House on the Prairie.
