Glenda Farrell (June 30, 1904 – May 1, 1971) was an American film actress.
Born in Enid, Oklahoma, Farrell came to Hollywood towards the end of the silent era. She was 5'3" with naturally brown hair and brown eyes.
Farrell began her career with a theatrical company at the age of 7. She played Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin. She paused at times to continue her education but appeared with a number of theatrical companies and in several Broadway productions.
She was in the cast of Cobra and The Best People with actress Charlotte Treadway, at the Morosco Theater in Los Angeles, California in 1925.
Farrell was first signed to a long-term contract by First National Pictures in July 1930. She was given the feminine lead in Little Caesar directed by Mervyn Leroy.
Warner Brothers signed her to re-create on film the role she played in Life Begins on Broadway. Farrell worked on parts in twenty movies in her first year with the studio. She came to personify the wise-cracking, hard-boiled, and somewhat dizzy blonde of the early talkies, along with fellow Warner Brothers brassy blonde, Joan Blondell, with whom she would be frequently paired. Her brassy persona was used to great effect in Little Caesar (1931) opposite Edward G. Robinson, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) opposite Paul Muni, Havana Widows (1933) with Blondell, Bureau of Missing Persons (1933) opposite Pat O'Brien, Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) opposite Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, and The Big Shakedown (1934) with Charles Farrell and Bette Davis.
She became one of Warner Brothers most prolific actresses of the 1930s, solidifying her success with her own film film series, as Torchy Blane, "Girl Reporter". In this role Farrell was promoted as being able to speak 400 words in 40 seconds. Farrell would portray the character Torchy Blane in approximately eight films, from 1937 to 1939 when the role was taken over by Jane Wyman. In 1937 she starred opposite Dick Powell and Joan Blondell in the Academy Award nominated Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley directed musical comedy Gold Diggers of 1937. When her Warner Brothers contact expired in 1939 she opted to focus on her stage career once again. She said that working in plays gave her more of a sense of individuality whereas in films you get frustrated because you feel you have no power over what you're doing.
In private life she dated Hollywood film writer Robert Riskin in the early 1930s. She married Jack Durant of the Mitchell and Durant vaudeville team in June 1931. In 1941 Farrell became the wife of Dr. Henry Ross. Her son is club entertainer Tommy Farrell.
Farrell went out of vogue in the 1940s but made a comeback later in life, winning an Emmy Award in 1963, for her work in the television series Ben Casey.
She was appearing on Broadway in a production of Forty Carats in 1969 when she was diagnosed with lung cancer.
She remained with the show until ill health forced her departure in November 1970. She died from lung cancer, aged 66. She died at her home in New York City and was interred in the U.S. Military Academy Post Cemetery, West Point, New York.
Glenda Farrell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6524 Hollywood Boulevard.
After gaining acting experience on the stage, Glenda Farrell became a Warner contract actor in the early 1930s. In spite of her later casting as a hard-boiled reporter in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) or successful gold digger Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935), one of her first roles was the romantic interest of Edward G. Robinson's former partner in Little Caesar (1931). In most movies, she only had supporting roles, but she's best remembered as a hard-boiled, fast-talking (she was able to speak 390 words in a minute) reporter Torchy Blaine in the film series of the same name.
