Marta Golden
American actress
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lillian Marta Golden (about 1880 – January 2, 1940)[1] was an American stage and film actress, writer, and vaudeville performer, associated with the films of Charlie Chaplin.
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about 1880
Marta Golden | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | Lillian Marta Golden about 1880 Pennsylvania, US |
| Died | January 2, 1940 San Francisco, California, US |
| Other names | Marta Golden Duffy, Lillie Duffy |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Spouse | |
Career
Film
Golden made her film debut in the 1915 Charlie Chaplin-directed short Work. She appeared in approximately seven motion pictures, often in comedies directed and starring Chaplin.[2] She recalled injuries while performing film stunts involving roller skates attached to her back, a head injury from a prop gun, underwater scrapes, cheese in her eyes, and hairpulling.[3] Her last appearance in a motion picture was in the 1928 Edwin Carewe-directed drama Revenge, starring Dolores del Río.[4]
Stage
Golden co-starred in a play in San Francisco in 1910.[5] She co-led the Golden-Raynes musical comedy company with her first husband, J. A. Raynes; the troupe included Roscoe Arbuckle and Lon Chaney.[6] She had "an exceedingly good program" when she performed in Honolulu in 1914;[7] also in 1914, she took over a role in The Merry Gambol from Marie Dressler.[8] She appeared on vaudeville programs in a musical comedy act with Truly Shattuck in 1916.[9][10] During the 1918 flu pandemic, when the theaters in San Francisco were closed as a public health measure, Golden organized actresses to volunteer with the American Red Cross.[11]
In the 1930s, Martha Golden Duffy was stage director at Westminster Avenue School in Venice, California, and organized vaudeville-style benefit shows.[12][13][14]
Writing
Golden worked at the Pittsburgh Dispatch as a young woman, writing for the newspaper's women's page.[5] She wrote a playlet, The Nut, which was produced at the Orpheum in Oakland in 1915.[15] She also wrote and starred in The Pickpocket, performed by her own company in 1918, at San Francisco's Hippodrome.[16] In 1927 she wrote a song, "I Wonder What the End Will Be."[17] She wrote and starred in Good Night Nurse: A Satire on Eugenics, performed at the Westminster Avenue School in 1930.[12] She wrote and starred in a one-act comedy, Neighbors, at Venice High School in 1931.[18]
Personal life
She married English-born composer and conductor John Arthur Raynes in 1910, and divorced him in 1915.[19][20] She remarried to Charles Arthur Duffy in 1918; they adopted a daughter, Jean.[21][22] Golden lived in Venice, California, in the late 1920s and 1930s.[17][23][24] She died in San Francisco in 1940, at the age of 60.[25]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1915 | Work | The Wife[2] | Short, Uncredited |
| 1915 | A Woman | Her Mother[2] | Short, Uncredited |
| 1915 | All Stuck Up | The Daughter | Short |
| 1915 | Crooked to the End | Short | |
| 1915 | A Janitor's Wife's Temptation | The Janitor's Wife[26] | Short |
| 1917 | The Adventurer | Mrs. Brown - Girl's Mother | Short, Uncredited |
| 1928 | Revenge | Leana | (final film role) |
