Expressive, dark-eyed child actress Edith Fellows made her movie debut in the Charley Chase two-reeler Movie Night (1929). She occasionally appeared with Hal Roach's Our Gang troupe in the very early talkie era, but was quickly snapped up by the bigger studios for feature-film work. Never a star, Fellows was allowed more versatility than many "bigger" movie moppets; her roles ranged from spoiled brats to pathetic street urchins. She was well-showcased in Bing Crosby's Pennies from Heaven (1936), which led to a series of leading roles in several Columbia programmers of the late 1930s. Fellows retired from films in 1942, opting for a quiet married life as the wife of agent/producer Freddie Fields. The advent of her divorce, coupled with a nervous breakdown, was followed by near-miraculous emotional recovery, which became the basis of one of Ralph Edwards's This is Your Life TV programs of the 1950s. Fellows began acting again in character roles in the 1960s; one of her best showings was in the role of famed costume designer Edith Head in the 1983 TV-movie biopic Grace Kelly. In 1985, actor-turned-director Jackie Cooper (himself a former child star in the Our Gang series) announced plans to do a biopic of Fellows, but the film never materialized.
by Hal Erickson
biography
