Evelyn Venable

A delicately lovely leading lady who, after brief stage experience with Walter Hampden's Shakespearean stock company, Evelyn Venable was signed by Paramount and made her debut in director Mitchell Leisen's first film, the sensitive "Cradle Song" (1933). Generally cast as sweet, demure types, Venable received several good opportunities opposite the popular Will Rogers in "David Harum" (1934), in the "old dark house" mystery "The Double Door" (1934), and as Shirley Temple's sister in "The Little Colonel" (1935). Her finest performance, though, was her truly haunting Grazia, carrying on a love affair with Death in the form of an exotic prince (Fredric March) in Leisen's allegorical fantasy "Death Takes a Holiday" (1934). Of interest to trivia buffs was Venable's serving as the model for the illustration of a torch-bearing woman which served as the logo for Columbia Pictures.