Boots Mallory
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Patricia "Boots" Mallory (October 22, 1913 – December 1, 1958) was an American film actress, dancer and model.
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mallory joined an all-girl band at the age of twelve as a banjo player and by the age of sixteen was a vaudeville dancer. She eventually travelled to New York City where she made a strong impression in the Broadway production of the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931.
Moving to Hollywood, she found employment with 20th Century Fox and was cast in the film version of Dawn Powell's play, Walking Down Broadway, which was the first sound picture made by Erich von Stroheim. He shared both screenwriting and directing credits and regarded Mallory as his discovery. The play told the story of a young unmarried woman involved in a love triangle who becomes pregnant; the finished product, however, strongly suggested a lesbian relationship between Mallory's character and that played by ZaSu Pitts. Other sexual themes involving the character played by James Dunn were considered too daring and 20th Century Fox drastically cut the film and brought in another director to shoot additional scenes. The film was finally released under the new title, Hello Sister! in 1933, with little promotion and was not a success. Von Stroheim's original version was neither copyrighted nor released, and is considered lost.[MSN Movies Hello Sister!] Retrieved May 6, 2006.
In 1932 her second completed film, Handle With Care, also co-starring James Dunn, was released and marked her debut. It was well received and Mallory was chosen as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1932, but the extensive media publicity surrounding her WAMPAS recognition, was undermined by the poor reception given to Hello Sister! when it was finally released.
A tall blonde, Mallory was well regarded for her striking looks and was photographed by such photographers as George Hurrell, however she also posed for risque lingerie photographs, and was painted nude by the pin-up artist Rolf Armstrong.
Over the next few years, Mallory played the lead in several "B" pictures, including the 1933 Rin Tin Tin feature The Wolf Dog, and received top-billing in Carnival Lady (1934) and The Big Race (1934). She worked with James Cagney in a radio production for Lux Radio Theatre,[Audio Classics Archive - Lux Radio Theatre]. Retrieved May 6, 2006. but she had difficulty breaking into more prestigious productions. She made her final film appearance in an uncredited role in the Laurel and Hardy film Swiss Miss (1938).
Mallory was first married at the age of sixteen, and by 1932 had married her second husband, film producer, William Cagney, a brother of the actor, James Cagney. She was married to the actor, Herbert Marshall, from 1947 until her death from chronic throat disease, in Santa Monica, California.
Though usually billed as Boots Mallory, she was sometimes billed as "Boots" Mallory, complete with quotation marks, and she used the quotation marks when signing autographs.
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