Rochelle Hudson | |
|---|---|
 Rochelle Hudson in the 1930s | |
| Born | Rachael Elizabeth Hudson (1916-03-06)March 6, 1916 |
| Died | January 17, 1972(1972-01-17) (aged 55) Palm Desert, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1930–1967 |
| Spouses | |
Rochelle Hudson (bornRachael Elizabeth Hudson;[3] March 6, 1916 – January 17, 1972) was an American film actress from the 1930s through the 1960s.[1] Hudson was aWAMPAS Baby Star in 1931.
Hudson was born inOklahoma City, Oklahoma, the daughter of Ollie Lee Hudson and Lenora Mae Hudson.[1] While in Oklahoma, she studied dancing, drama, piano, and voice. Hudson began her acting career as a teenager, and completed her high school education at a high school on the Fox studios lot.[3]
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Hudson signed a contract withRKO Pictures on November 22, 1930, when she was 14 years old.[4]
She may be best remembered today for costarring inWild Boys of the Road (1933), playing Cosette inLes Misérables (1935), playing Mary Blair, the older sister ofShirley Temple's character inCurly Top, and for playingNatalie Wood's mother inRebel Without a Cause (1955). During her peak years in the 1930s, notable roles for Hudson includedRichard Cromwell’s love interest in theWill Rogers showcaseLife Begins at 40 (1935), the daughter of carnival barkerW.C. Fields inPoppy (1936), andClaudette Colbert’s adult daughter inImitation of Life (1934).
She played Sally Glynn, the fallen ingenue to whomMae West imparts the immortal wisdom "When women go wrong, men go right after them!" in the 1933 Paramount film,She Done Him Wrong. In the 1954–1955 television season, Hudson co-starred withGil Stratton andEddie Mayehoff in the sitcomThat's My Boy,[5] based on a 1951Jerry Lewis andDean Martinfilm of the same name.
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Hudson was married four times. All the unions were childless. Her first marriage was to Harold Thompson, in 1939. He was the head of theStoryline Department atDisney Studios.
After their divorce in 1947 (although the trade publicationBillboard reported that they divorced on September 4, 1945),[6] she married a second time the following year, toLos Angeles Times sportswriter Dick Irving Hyland. The marriage lasted two years before the couple divorced. Hudson married her third husband, Charles K. Brust, inJackson, Missouri on September 28, 1956.[7]
Little is known of the marriage other than they were divorced by June 1962 (he remarried). Hudson's final marriage was to Robert Mindell, a hotel executive. The two remained together for eight years before they divorced in 1971.
Hudson actually was born in 1916, but the studio reportedly made her two years older for her to play a wider variety of roles, including romantic roles. InThat's My Boy, she was cast as the mother of Gil Stratton, who was only six years her junior.
In 1972, Hudson was found dead in her home at the Palm Desert Country Club. A business associate with whom she had been working in real estate discovered her body sprawled on the bathroom floor. She was 55 years old.[2] Hudson died of a heart attack brought on by a liver ailment.[8]
Walter Price, a real estate business associate, found the body Monday alter being summoned by Miss Hudson's widowed mother, Mae Hudson, who got no response from her daughter by telephone or at the door. A friend,Evelyn Young, said Miss Hudson recently had been ill with a cold and laryngitis.
