Mitzi Green

Mitzi Green (born Elizabeth Keno; October 22, 1920 – May 24, 1969) was an American child actress for Paramount and RKO, in the early talkie era. She then acted on Broadway and in other stage works, as well as in films and on television.

Early years

Mitzi Green, was born in The Bronx on October 22, 1920. Starting at the age 3, she began appearing in her parents' vaudeville act under the name Little Mitzi.

Career

Green was cast in such conventional juvenile parts as Becky Thatcher in Tom Sawyer (1930) and Huckleberry Finn (1931) opposite Jackie Coogan and Jackie Searl. She also starred in the title role of Little Orphan Annie. At the age of 14, she played a soubrette role in Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (1934). This film closed out the first stage of her Hollywood career.

She went on to Broadway, where she starred in the original production of Rodgers and Hart's Babes in Arms (1937). Two of Green's numbers in the musical were "My Funny Valentine," which would ultimately become a jazz standard in many cover recordings and performances, and "The Lady is a Tramp".

Green made one more film in 1940, then went back to stage and nightclub work, including Walk with Music by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer and the Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical Billion Dollar Baby. Green married Broadway (and later movie and TV) director Joseph Pevney and retired to raise a family. In 1951, she returned briefly to the screen opposite Abbott and Costello in Lost in Alaska (1951) and in Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952), co-starring another Mitzi—Mitzi Gaynor.

In 1955, she starred with Virginia Gibson and Gordon Jones in the short-lived NBC TV sitcom So This Is Hollywood, in the role of Queenie Dugan, a high-spirited stuntwoman.

After a brief stint on the nightclub circuit, Green retired again, although she did appear in summer stock and dinner theater around the Los Angeles area thereafter, and she appeared occasionally as a guest on talk shows.

Recognition

For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Green received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6430 Hollywood Blvd.

Death

On May 24, 1969, Green died in Huntington Beach, California, at age 48, of cancer.

Partial filmography

Stage

• Babes In Arms (1937)
• Walk With Music (1940)
• Let Freedom Sing (1942)
• Billion Dollar Baby (1945)