Marilyn Knowlden, Pre-Code Child Actor, Dies at 99
Knowlden had been inarguably the last living person to have worked with or met Clara Bow, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, the Marx Brothers, Jimmy Cagney and a host of other luminaries
September 16, 2025
Just about five months after the death of another very long-lived former child actor (Cora Sue Collins), Marilyn Knowlden died September 15 at an Eagle, Idaho, care facility at 99.
At the time of her passing, Knowlden had been an incredible living link to the furthest reaches of Old Hollywood glory, having begun her career at just 4 in 1931.
Imagine that until yesterday, an actor who got her start 94+ years ago was still with us.
Knowlden was born May 12, 1926, in Oakland, California.
A baby beauty pageant winner at 3, her fast-talking lawyer dad finagled a screen test for her in 1931, landing her first gig in Hollywood, Women Love Once, with Paul Lukas.
Though it sounded like a studio concoction for PR, Knowlden and her parents were in a car crash immediately after she found out she had won the part. Actress Dolores Costello actually helped the child, while her mom was taken to a hospital with broken ribs and a broken collarbone.
Her parents took her around to cinemas as part of the film’s promotion, where Marilyn would perform live immediately prior to a screening.
She always had the loving support of her parents, which made her brief but consequential career a joy — how often do we hear that about former child stars?
Knowlden was also unusual in that she was not in any one studio’s stable, so mostly attended public school. She said in 2018 that her dad was to think noting that avoiding a studio contract was because “if you’re a child under contract, you have to go to the studio school, and there goes your normal life. I think he was very happy to have things the way they were.”
After her debut, she worked very steadily. A sweet-faced child good at handling dialogue, she was most often playing the leading lady as a child, someone’s adorable little girl or someone’s kid sister.
She went on to appear in a number of famous films, including The Cisco Kid (1931); Call Her Savage (1932) with Clara Bow; George Cukor's Little Women (1933) with Katharine Hepburn; the first Imitation of Life (1934) as Jessie Pullman with Claudette Colbert; David Copperfield (1935) with W.C. Fields (they never met); Les Misérables (1935) as Cosette with Fredric March and Charles Laughton; the first Show Boat (1936) with Irene Dunne and Paul Robeson; Anthony Adverse (1936) with March and Olivia de Havilland; Marie Antoinette (1938) with Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power; Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart; All This, and Heaven Too (1940) with Bette Davis; and her swan song, The Way of All Flesh (1940).
One disappointment came when her scenes in Greta Garbo’s Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) in 1931 were left on the cutting-room floor.
Perhaps her greatest near-miss was Gone with the Wind (1939) — Ann Rutherford won the role.
In spite of her short career, Knowlden was in six Best Picture nominees in a span of seven years, and was the subject of a children’s doll.
After leaving Hollywood, she went to school, got married and did community theater, worked on her music, wrote plays and, in 2011, published the memoir Little Girl in Big Pictures.
In 2010, she was honored with a career-achievement award by Cinecon, and it was at the 2012 event that I was able to meet his charming fount of knowledge about movie history. She often attended movie events until her age got in the way, and was a marvelous storyteller.
Check out this great, late-career interview with Knowlden.
Knowlden was preceded in death by her husband. She is survived by her son Kevin, her son Brian, her daughter Carolyn, three grandkids and 12 great-grandkids. ⚡️