Jacqueline Logan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Jacqueline Logan
Logan in 1922
Born	(1902-11-30)November 30, 1902 Corsicana, Texas, U.S.
Died	April 4, 1983(1983-04-04) (aged 80) Melbourne, Florida, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1921–1931, 1973
Spouse(s)	Ralph James Gillespie ​ ​ (m. 1925; div. 1928)​ William Lawrence "Larry" Winston ​ ​ (m. 1928; div. 1947)​

Jacqueline Medura Logan (born November 30, 1902 – died April 4, 1983) was a famous American actress. She was a big star in silent films, which were movies without sound. In 1922, she was even named a "WAMPAS Baby Star," a special award for promising young actresses.

Early Life and First Jobs

Growing Up in Texas and Nebraska

Jacqueline Logan was born in Corsicana, Texas, on November 30, 1902. She was the only child of Charles A. Logan and Marian Logan. Her father was an architect, who designs buildings. Her mother was an opera singer for a short time and later taught singing lessons.

Jacqueline spent her childhood in El Paso, Colorado and Scottsbluff, Nebraska. In Scottsbluff, she worked briefly as a journalist for a newspaper called the Scottsbluff Republican. This means she wrote articles and stories for the paper.

From Stage to Broadway

Starting Out in Colorado

Jacqueline Logan moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, for her health. While there, she started acting in a type of theater called "stock theater." This is where actors perform different plays with the same group of people. She also took a journalism class from Ford Frick, who later became a very important person in Major League Baseball.

Dancing in Chicago and New York

Jacqueline then traveled to Chicago. She found a job dancing in a stage show. Her family thought she was visiting an uncle and going to college. To get the dancing job, she told a small lie about her age. When her uncle found out, he was very upset, and she lost the job.

After Chicago, Jacqueline moved to New York City. She joined a group of actors traveling there. She got a small part in a musical called Florodora on Broadway in 1920. Broadway is famous for its big theater shows.

A famous showman named Flo Ziegfeld noticed her. He hired her to dance on his Ziegfeld Roof. She took the place of another dancer, Billie Donovan, who was leaving to act in movies in Hollywood. Besides dancing for Ziegfeld, Jacqueline also modeled for photographs. She appeared in a short comedy film too.

Becoming a Movie Star

Early Films and Big Names

Jacqueline Logan got a chance to try out for a movie role with an actor named Ben Lyon. Ben Lyon later became very famous and helped start the careers of stars like Marilyn Monroe. Jacqueline worked for a company called Associated Producers. She appeared in the film A Perfect Crime (1921) with Jane Peters, who later became the well-known actress Carole Lombard. Jane Peters was just a young child actress at the time. In the same year, Jacqueline acted with Mabel Normand in Molly O' (1921).

Publicity photo of Logan from The Blue Book of the Screen (1923)

Jacqueline starred in many other movies in the early 1920s. Some of these include Burning Sands (1922), A Blind Bargain (1922), Sixty Cents an Hour (1923), Java Head (1923), and A Man Must Live (1924). She worked with many famous actors of the time, such as Thomas Meighan, Milton Sills, Ricardo Cortez, Lon Chaney Sr., and William Powell. Her movie The House of Youth (1924) was her first film where she was the main star.

In 1926, Jacqueline made Footloose Widows with Louise Fazenda. In 1927, she starred in The Blood Ship with Richard Arlen. She also acted alongside other important leading men like Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore, and Antonio Moreno.

Logan in the trailer for the 1927 silent epic The King of Kings

The King of Kings

In 1927, Jacqueline was chosen by the famous director Cecil B. De Mille for a very important role. She played Mary Magdalene in the classic film The King of Kings. Many actresses wanted this part. The movie was incredibly popular and broke records for how many people came to see it. It was shown somewhere in the world every day for many years after it first came out. When movies with sound, called talkies, became popular, Jacqueline's voice was added to her part in this silent film.

The Rise of Talkies

When talkies became common, Jacqueline Logan found it harder to get roles. Her voice was recorded for The King of Kings, but she wasn't as successful in the new sound films. She was part of a big musical film called The Show of Shows (1929), which featured many stars. Before this, she had worked on some successful early sound films for Columbia Pictures.

Writing and Directing Films

A New Career Path

Jacqueline Logan went to England to act in stage plays. She received good reviews for her work there. After finishing an English film called The Middle Watch, she was given a special honor called a Command Performance. A film company called British International Pictures hired her to write and direct movies.

She wrote a film called Knock-Out (1931). She also wrote and directed Strictly Business (1931). Both of these movies were successful.

Returning to Hollywood

When Jacqueline returned to Hollywood, she found it hard to get directing jobs. Even though the head of production at Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, praised her work, he was not willing to hire a female director.

Jacqueline Logan stopped making films completely after she got married in 1934. Before that, she acted in several Broadway plays, including Merrily We Roll Along and Two Strange Women.

Later Life and Family

Marriages and Homes

Jacqueline Logan was married three times. Her first marriage was to Ralph James Gillespie on June 4, 1925. She filed for divorce in 1927.

Five months later, Jacqueline secretly married Larry Winston in Tijuana. Because of legal rules, they lived separately for a while to avoid any problems with the law. Her divorce from Gillespie became final in March 1928, and she officially married Winston in June of that year.

After divorcing Winston in 1947, Jacqueline lived in Westchester County, New York, until the late 1960s. She spent her winters in Florida, visiting friends who were also former actresses, like Lila Lee and Dorothy Dalton. The rest of the year, she lived in Bedford Hills, New York, with her award-winning Great Dane dog.

Death

Jacqueline Logan passed away at the age of 80 in Melbourne, Florida, in 1983. She is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Decatur, Illinois.

Filmography

See also

In Spanish: Jacqueline Logan para niños