Fact: Ann Dvorak Was NOT One of the Original Goldwyn Girls
Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 257
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Every so often, a tidbit of incorrect Ann Dvorak info floats around that infinite realm known as the Internet and I feel compelled to correct it. As you may recall, back on Day 2 of the Year of Ann Dvorak I kvetched about an image of Ann and Marjorie King on the beach who is frequently (and bizarrely) mistaken for Raquel Torres.
Last week across the Twitterverse, the following was posted, and re-posted, and re-posted.
Fact: Lucille Ball was one of the twenty original “Goldwyn Girls”, along with Virginia Bruce, Ann Dvorak, Paulette Goddard and Betty Grable,
This misinformation has been floating around online for at least a decade, and it’s actually not a fact, at least as far as Ann Dvorak is concerned. The Goldwyn Girls were chorines used in films produced by the Samuel Goldwyn Company. Ann did appear in a Goldwyn film, 1950s Our Very Own, but in 1930 when the Goldwyn Girls made their debut, Ann was hoofing for MGM.
Perhaps Ann’s employment at Metro Goldwyn Mayer as a chorus girl caused someone some confusion at some point. However, Samuel Goldwyn never produced films for the legendary studio that bore his name, and I have never come across any documentation pointing to Ann being loaned out to another studio at that time. I don’t think there has ever been a shortage of chorus girls, so a loan out for uncredited hoofers doesn’t make much sense.
If you learn nothing else from this site, I hope you’ll note that Ann Dvorak never posed on the beach with Raquel Torres and was never a Goldwyn Girl!
That “Ann Dvoark and NOT Raquel Torres on the Beach” photo has to be one of my two or three favorite pictures of her. Wowsa! Do you think it was possible Clarence Bull took more that day on the beach than the two you posted on day 2?
Being a huge Marx Brothers fan, I remembered Raquel Torres from “Duck Soup”. But had never heard of Marjorie King.
In that year of 1931, Marjorie had a small part in the Great Garbo/Clark Gable film “Susan Lenox”. Two years later, she appeared with Lew Ayres and Harry Langdon in “My Weakness” at FOX. (Which I’ve never seen.)
Her last film credit, according to the IMDb, was in “J’ai gagne un million”. (Or “I Won A Million”.) Made for the Belgian ‘Bruxelles-Films company in 1936, and directed by that noted auteur Og Calster.
There is, believe it or not, a small two minute clip from this movie on YOUTUBE. It’s in French and looks like it may have been filmed in Paris.
What Marjorie was doing there, or why she was there, would be anyone’s guess.
I have one other photo from the beach of the two girls running towards the camera. I’ll have to dig it up and scan it, though it’s not nearly as provocative as the one with their backs to the camera. I would guess maybe a few more were printed.