Edith Fellows

Who was Edith Fellows?

Edith Marilyn Fellows was an American actress who became a child star in the 1930s. Best known for playing orphans and street urchins, Fellows was an expressive actress with a good singing voice. She made her screen debut at the age of five in Charley Chase's film short Movie Night. Her first credited role in a feature film was The Rider of Death Valley. By 1935, she had appeared in over twenty films. Her performance opposite Claudette Colbert and Melvyn Douglas in She Married Her Boss won her a seven-year contract with Columbia Pictures, the first such contract offered to a child.

Fellows appeared in a series of leading roles for Columbia, including Tugboat Princess, Little Miss Roughneck, and The Little Adventuress. Her performance as the precocious orphan alongside Bing Crosby in Pennies from Heaven won her critical acclaim. In 1942, she appeared in two Gene Autry films, Heart of the Rio Grande and Stardust on the Sage, which highlighted her fine singing voice. Her acting career was interrupted in the 1940s by serious personal problems, her own life becoming more Dickensian than the characters she portrayed on screen.