Leota Lane

Leota Lane (born Leotabel Mullican;<ref name="hc">Template:Cite news</ref> October 25, 1903 – July 25, 1963) was an American actress, and the oldest sibling in the Lane Sisters family of singers and actresses. Unlike her sisters, Leota did not find the same success and left Hollywood for New York City before the sisters' breakthrough.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Early years

Leota was born in Indianola, Iowa, in 1903, to dentist Lorenzo Mullican<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and his wife, Cora Bell Hicks.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She had four sisters: Dorothy (Lola), Rosemary, Martha, and Priscilla, three of whom later had careers in entertainment. Lane and her sister Lola graduated from a conservatory at Simpson College.<ref name="bde">Template:Cite news</ref>

Career

File:Leota and Lola Lane.jpg

Leota (left) with Lola, 1930

Vaudeville entertainer Gus Edwards discovered them performing in a benefit concert in Des Moines, Iowa and put them on the road to their professional career.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Leota and Lola then left to New York and both made their Broadway debuts in the late twenties, Lola in 1928, as Sally Moss in The War Song, which opened on Broadway on August 24, 1928, at the Nederlander Theatre (then known as the National Theatre) and Leota in 1929 as Contrary Mary in Babes in Toyland, which opened on December 23, 1929 at Jolson's 59th Street Theatre.<ref name="bde" /> Leota later followed her sister to Hollywood where she made her first screen appearance in a comedy short film Three Hollywood Girls (1930) directed by Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, but soon returned to New York, where she later completed a BS degree in Music at the Juilliard School in May, 1939.<ref>"Four Daughters was Screened too Late for the Father Who Had Five of Them." New York Post, 8 May 1939.</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> She originally also had a role in Michael Curtiz's Four Daughters (1938), as Kay Lemp<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> but the director replaced her by Gale Page.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> She plays a role in You"re Next to Closing, another two-reel<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Vitaphone production (1939),<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> a source errroneously presented as her "film debut" in certain sources.<ref name=":0" />

Personal life

Leota was married three times. She married her first husband Mischel D. Picard in 1928, they later divorced in 1930.<ref>"New York Manufacturer Marries Leota Lane." New York Sun, 10 December 1928.</ref><ref>"Divorces." Billboard, 3 May 1930.</ref> She married Edward Joseph Pitts in 1941, and Jerome Day, they were married until her death in 1963.<ref>The marriage would have occurred pre-1953, as she's listed as "Leota Lane Day" in this article: "Lane Sisters Split in Estate Battle." Oakland Tribune, 3 October 1952.</ref>

Death

Leota died following open-heart surgery on July 25, 1963 in Glendale, California, aged 59. She was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.<ref>Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 25047-25048). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref>

External links

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