Evelyn Venable

Evelyn Venable's first dramatic appearance was in a Cincinnati high school production of Romeo and Juliet; this led to her professional debut in a civic center production of Dear Brutus. Venable won a scholarship to Vassar, then briefly attended the University of Cincinnati before joining a stock company supervised by Broadway star Walter Hampden, an old friend of the Venable family. She received generous critical praise for her performance as Roxanne opposite Hampden's Cyrano de Bergerac. While appearing with the Hampden troupe in Los Angeles, Venable was signed by Paramount Pictures. During her brief reign as a movie star, Venable was subject to reams of publicity coverage: she was billed as "the kissless girl," purportedly because her father had insisted that a clause be inserted in her contract preventing her from being kissed onscreen (Venable's dad found this studio-fabricated legend as perplexing as she did). Reportedly, she was the model for Columbia Pictures' "Torch Lady," though other likely candidates for this honor include Claudia Dell and Viola Dana. The one Evelyn Venable performance that received the widest distribution was her voice-only portrayal of the Blue Fairy in Disney's Pinocchio (1940). After retiring from films, Venable resumed her scholastic career, enrolling at U.C.L.A. some 25 years after leaving the University of Cincinnati. Majoring in Greek and Latin, Evelyn eventually joined the U.C.L.A. faculty. Evelyn Venable's first and only husband was cinematographer Hal Mohr, whom she met on the set of the Will Rogers vehicle David Harum (1934). - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide