Marilyn Erskine

Marilyn Erskine (born April 24, 1926) is an American actress who started performing at the age of three on radio, and has since appeared in radio, theater, film and television roles from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Marilyn Erskine
Born (1926-04-24) April 24, 1926
Rochester, New York, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1929–1972
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 1945⁠–⁠1945)​
(annulled)
Charles Curland (1955–2012; his death); 2 children

Personal life

Erskine was born in Rochester, New York on April 24, 1926, and was in show business from early childhood.[1] Erskine married Hollywood producer and director Stanley Kramer in May 1945. The marriage was annulled two months later. She later remarried, to insurance executive Charles Curland in 1955, and had two children. Their home in Brentwood, California was featured in an article in the Fall 1958 issue of Architectural Digest.[2]

Radio career

Erskine started her performing career at the age of three years, appearing on a local radio show in Buffalo, New York.[3] She also appeared on the nationwide CBS radio show Let's Pretend sometime between 1929 and 1937, where children played all the roles in adaptions of fairy tales and other children's stories.[3] She played Gail Carver in the soap opera Lora Lawton, which ran on NBC 1943-1950[4]: 206 , Jane Brown on Young Widder Brown, which ran on NBC 1938-1956,[4]: 361  and Cherry Martin in The Romance of Helen Trent, which ran on CBS 1933-1960.[4]: 289  Erskine performed the role of Jane Baxter in Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre on the Air adaptation of Seventeen (October 16, 1938).

In 1945, Erskine was a member of the cast of the syndicated comedy Keeping Up with Wigglesworth.[4]

Theater career

As a teenager, she appeared in at least nine Broadway productions in New York City:

  • Excursion (playing Eileen Loschavio) April 9, 1937 - July ?, 1937
  • The Ghost of Yankee Doodle (playing Patience Garrison) November 22, 1937 - January ?, 1938
  • Our Town (playing Rebecca Gibbs) February 4, 1938 - November 19, 1938
  • The Primrose Path (playing Eva Wallace) January 4, 1939 - May ?, 1939
  • Goodbye in the Night (playing Gertie) March 18–23, 1940
  • Ring Around Elizabeth (playing Mercedes) November 17–25, 1941
  • What Big Ears! (playing Betty Leeds) April 20–25, 1942[5]
  • Nine Girls (playing Shirley) January 13–16, 1943
  • Pretty Little Parlor (playing Anastasia) April 17–22, 1944

As an adult, she appeared in at least one Broadway production in New York City and several Off-Broadway plays:

  • The Linden Tree (playing Dinah Linden) March 2–6, 1948
  • Our Town (playing Emily Webb) 1953 - 1955[6]

Film career

Erskine appeared in several Hollywood movies in the early 1950s:

She played herself in an MGM documentary Challenge the Wilderness (1951), on the production problems faced while filming Westward the Women. She was also one of the narrators for the MGM documentary The Hoaxters (1953), a short history of Communism.

Television career

Erskine appeared in almost every anthology drama series of the Golden Age of Television, from General Electric Theater to Westinghouse Studio One to Science Fiction Theater to Lux Video Theater to Climax!, appearing in over fifty different productions on thirty different series from 1949 to 1962. In her later career, after 1962, she primarily played roles on westerns and crime dramas.

She was co-starred on the television series The Tom Ewell Show, playing Tom's wife, Frances Potter.[7] This sitcom ran from September 1960 through May 1961 on CBS. She was a co-presenter for the Short Subject Awards category of the 26th Annual Academy Awards in 1954, and appeared as herself in the last episode of The NBC Comedy Hour June 10, 1956.

She made two guest appearances on Perry Mason starring Raymond Burr. In 1964 she played Susan Pelham in "The Case of the Careless Kidnapper," and in 1966 she played Mirabel Corum in "The Case of the Unwelcome Well." Her last role on television was in 1972, in the Ironside TV series, also starring Burr.

References
  1. Tucker, David C. (19 April 2010). Lost Laughs of '50s and '60s Television: Thirty Sitcoms That Faded Off Screen. McFarland. p. 204. ISBN 9780786455829. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  2. Rense, Paige (editor), "Architectural Digest Fall 1958" (Vol. 15, No. 3), John C. Brasfield Publishing Corp.
  3. Dunning, John (1998) "On the Air: the Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio" Oxford University Press, pages 391-393; ISBN 0-19-507678-8
  4. Terrace, Vincent (1999). Radio Programs, 1924-1984: A Catalog of More Than 1800 Shows. McFarland & Company, Inc.; ISBN 978-0-7864-4513-4. pg. 189.
  5. Burr, Eugene (reviewer) "New Play on Broadway" Billboard (May 2, 1942) (Vol. 54, No. 18 ISSN 0006-2510, published by Nielsen Business Media, Inc) page 10
  6. Hedda Hopper (February 13, 1955). "Tab Hunter for Stardom". The Chicago Tribune.
  7. Terrace, Vincent (2011). Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010. McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-6477-7. P. 1092.
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