Margaret Early

Margaret Early was an American film actress whose Hollywood career spanned the 1930s and 1940s. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on Christmas Day 1919 and grew up on a farm nearby. A business trip to Hollywood with her father led to an invitation to try out for a Harold Lloyd Beverly Hills Little Theatre for Professionals production, where Gregory La Cava noticed her, and RKO eventually signed her. Stage Door (1937), her first screen role, paired her with Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers and Adolphe Menjou. At Warner Bros. she played Spring Byington's daughter in Jezebel (1938), alongside Bette Davis, George Brent and Fay Bainter. She then worked as a freelance actress for studios including RKO, Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with roles in Strike Up the Band (1940), Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (1941) and Stage Door Canteen (1943). Cinderella Jones (1946) was her final screen appearance, and she died in 2000.