Doris Merrick

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Biography

Information from
http://www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com/show/427/Doris+Merrick/index.html website

Updated: 2001
  • 6 June 19 is born in Chicago, Illinois, to Joseph and Nellie Simpson, one of four girls and six boys
  • ? attends Hyde Park High School in Chicago
  • ? makes her first public appearance with three singing sisters
  • ? takes vocal lessons and becomes an NBC soloist
  • ? is heralded "Chicago's Playsuit Girl"
  • c. 1936 marries Maximilian "Max" Marek, Chicago Golden Gloves champion-turned-liquor salesman. Marek's of Polish descent and earned a Notre Dame football scholarship in 1933, the same year he beat Joe Louis in the Golden Gloves finals in Boston, billing himself ever since as "The Man Who Beat Joe Louis."
  • 1937 her first daughter, Doris "Dee," is born
  • 1941 is Chicago's number one blond model
  • November 41 as Doris Simpson, she is tested by Warner Brothers
  • December 41 Warner Brothers put her under contract
  • 1942 films Time to Kill opposite Lloyd Nolan. It will become her favorite movie.
  • January 42 as Beth Drake, she is groomed for stardom with a walk-on in The Male Animal
  • the press reports: "'And what do you do to protect your good looks?' model Beth Drake was asked, when she signed a Warner contract. Answered Beth: 'Stay out of night clubs.'"
  • April 42 will have her first featured role at Warner Brothers in The Hard Way
  • May 42 is reported married and having two ambitions: to be a great actress and to have three children
  • June 42 she and fellow Warner starlet Alice Talton are pictured collecting waste paper as part of their defense work
  • will be in Yankee Doodle Dandy
  • is reported wearing glasses. "But she makes sure that the frames are the newest and the most becoming style for her..."
  • c. summer 42 changes her name to Doris Merrick
  • October 42 a newspaper photo shows her with four blonde puppies, Higgle, Piggle, Wiggle, and Squiggle, recent "costars" in one of her films
  • War Years is among the celebrities helping the war effort with the Cavalcade of Stars
  • April 43 she and fellow newcomer Rhonda Fleming are pictured enhancing a Southern California beach
  • 30 April 43 is on the cover of Yank, The Army Weekly
  • May 43 promotes her upcoming part in Jane Eyre by presenting a new dress, cut like a suit, but fashioned all in one piece
  • March 44 her Doberman-Pinscher pup Smokey is reported the seventh member of her family who has joined the WAGS. “The screen star’s husband and two brothers and three sisters are all in the service."
  • ? divorces Marek. He will become a renowned Southside restaurateur and die at age 62 in 1977 in Chicago.
  • ? has a crush on producer Raymond Hakim
  • ? meets John M. Knoll while at a private party with her agent, Phil Berg. She is dancing with Vince Orsatti when Knoll interrupts them to ask for a dance. Later he asks her if he can take her home, even though he is with "Miss America" and has to take her home first. They will be together from then on.
  • February 46 marries Knoll, a Lancaster, California, rancher and lumberman. He's 28; she's 26.
  • 20 October 46 her daughter Elizabeth Ann is born in Los Angeles
  • 7 May 48 her daughter Kathleen Susan is born in Los Angeles
  • 26 December 50 her son, John Meagher, is born in Los Angeles
  • 12 March 54 her daughter Charla Michael is born in Los Angeles
  • 22 May 55 she and Knoll separate
  • 4 June 55 she and Knoll are in Los Angeles Domestic Relations Court to talk about a divorce. They confer for half an hour with Judge Elmer D. Doyle. When they emerge, they plan a second honeymoon in Hawaii. Their case is continued until June 24.
  • 13 November 56 files for divorce in Los Angeles charging that Knoll threatened to reduce her food allowance because she was gaining weight. She asks $575 a month, including $150 for food for her four children, pending the divorce trial. The judge cuts it down to $350 a month. Knoll’s 39; she’s 37.
  • 1962 divorces Knoll, who will die of cancer in the Seventies
  • 31 December 64 marries Los Angeles lawyer Matthew Lawton Hatfield in Los Angeles
  • April 86 becomes the widow of Hatfield, who dies at age 58 in Los Angeles
  • 2007 resides in Rancho Mirage, California
  • Date of Birth - 6 June 1920, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Pin-up Gallery

DorisMerrick01.jpg

Filmography

  • Interrupted Melody (1955) (uncredited) .... Nurse
  • The Neanderthal Man (1953) .... Ruth Marshall
  • Death Valley Days" (1 episode, 1952)
.. aka Call of the West (USA: syndication title)
.. aka The Pioneers (USA: syndication title)
.. aka Trails West (USA: syndication title)
.. aka Western Star Theater (USA: syndication title)
- Self-Made Man (1952) TV episode
  • Untamed Women (1952) .... Sandra
  • "The Cisco Kid" .... Anita Hardy / ... (2 episodes, 1951-1952)
- Ghost Town (1952) TV episode .... Anita Hardy
- Hypnotist Murder (1951) TV episode .... Madame Lil
  • "The Adventures of Kit Carson" (1 episode)
... aka Kit Carson
- Bandit's Blade (????) TV episode
  • The Fighting Stallion (1950) .... Jeanne Barton
  • The Counterfeiters (1948) .... Margo
  • The Pilgrim Lady (1947) .... Millicent Rankin
  • Child of Divorce (1946) .... Louise Norman
  • Hit the Hay (1945) .... Sally
  • This Love of Ours (1945) .... Vivian
  • Sensation Hunters (1945) .... Julie Rogers
... aka Club Paradise (USA: TV title)
  • The Big Noise (1944) .... Evelyn
  • In the Meantime, Darling (1944) .... Mrs. MacAndrews
  • Ladies of Washington (1944) .... Susan
... aka Ladies in Washington
  • Heaven Can Wait (1943) (uncredited) .... Night Nurse
  • Time to Kill (1942) .... Linda Conquest Murdock
  • That Other Woman (1942) (uncredited) .... Irene
  • Girl Trouble (1942) .... Susan

External links

  • No information on this person or topic was available at Wikipedia as of date

Doris Merrick at the Internet Movie Database

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