Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

major star, he did make many films as an adult, his small
frame and boyish looks allowing him to continue playing
teenage roles in films like Junior Prom (1946), when he
was almost thirty. In fact, teenage movie characters slowly
became more common than their younger counterparts
during the 1930s, with performers like Deanna Durbin
(b. 1921), Judy Garland (1922–1969), and Mickey
Rooney (b. 1920) making a significant impact.
While not as popular as Temple, Jane Withers
(b. 1926) was another eminent child star in the pre-
World War II era, and actually had her breakthrough
role starring opposite Temple in Bright Eyes (1934).
Withers showcased a wit and range that made her stand
out from her peers, yet she too had difficulty moving
beyond youthful roles and was rarely seen in movies after
her teens. And as if the lessons of Baby Peggy had not
been learned, the studios introduced two more characters
with similar nicknames in the 1930s: Baby LeRoy
(1932–2001) and Baby Sandy (b. 1938). LeRoy really
was a baby, starring with W. C. Fields in many films
starting at the age of one, and retiring from the screen at
the uniquely young age of three. Sandy was highlighted
in films as an infant just before World War II, but took
the cue from her predecessor and retired in 1942, at four.
THE WORLD WAR II ERA
The war changed many cultural attitudes, both in the
United States and abroad, and afterward children were
viewed as less carefree and more conflicted. Perhaps the
actor best exemplifying this change was Roddy
McDowall (1928–1998), who started making films in
Britain at the age of eight and became a star with his
first Hollywood film, How Green Was My Valley (1941),
when he was thirteen. McDowall’s performance as a boy
in a Welsh mining town was imbued with tender torment,
and he brought that same sensitivity to his subsequent
films, such as My Friend Flicka (1943). Another
impressive actor of the war years was Margaret O’Brien
(b. 1937), who began acting when she was four and
found stardom the next year as the title character of
Journey for Margaret (1942), a film about an English girl
orphaned during the war. O’Brien appeared in eight
films over the next two years, including Lost Angel
(1943) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), earning her a
special Academy AwardÒ as the ‘‘outstanding child
actress of 1944.’’ Her output nonetheless slowed thereafter,
although she won praise in the prominent role of
Beth in Little Women (1949). Unlike McDowall, whose
further acting work was prodigious, O’Brien had few
notable roles after the early 1950s.
The child actor who can best make the claim for avoiding
the curse of obscurity is Elizabeth Taylor (b. 1932),
whose fame only increased as she aged beyond adolescence.
Child Actors
Taylor started in movies in 1942 at the age of ten, with a
striking beauty and endearing pathos that made her a
sensation in Lassie Come Home (1943) and National
Velvet (1944). She moved into teenage roles with
ease, and unlike most other child stars, Taylor moved into
adult roles while still in her teens, getting married at
eighteen in Father of the Bride (1950) and having a child
the next year in the sequel, Father’s Little Dividend
(1951). Her success grew even greater over the next two
decades, making her one of the biggest stars in Hollywood
history.
Another success story is that of Natalie Wood
(1938–1981), whose performance as a skeptical child
doubting the existence of Santa Claus in Miracle on
34th Street (1947) was further evidence of the hardening
attitudes behind children’s roles after the war. She continued
in many minor films through the rest of her
childhood and found her foremost roles later playing
teenagers. Still, for every Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie
Wood, there were numerous fading child stars like Bobby
Driscoll (1937–1968), notable in Song of the South
(1946) and Treasure Island (1950) but out of work by
his early twenties, then dead at thirty-one, and Claude
Jarman, Jr. (b. 1934), who won a special Academy
AwardÒ at the age of twelve for his very first film, The
Yearling (1946), made a few movies as a teen, and finished
acting for the big screen at twenty-two.
CHILD STARS AFTER THE 1950s
Children’s roles in American movies over the following
decades became less prominent as cultural attention
shifted to teenagers, and Hollywood followed accordingly.
Only a handful of significant child performers
emerged in these years, and most enjoyed only one significant
role as a child. Patty McCormack (b. 1945) was
one such case: she was astonishing as the evil little girl in
The Bad Seed (1956), then drifted into hipster teen roles
in the 1960s.
Similar cases in this period included Brandon de
Wilde (1942–1972), who won acclaim as an elevenyear-old
in Shane (1953), one of the rare westerns with
a meaningful child’s role, then struggled to regain his
stature as a teenager, with only one further hit, Hud
(1963). At the age of sixteen, Patty Duke (b. 1946)
played Helen Keller as a child in The Miracle Worker
(1962), earning her the first OscarÒ won in competition
by a minor. Despite the successful television show she
starred in afterward, her subsequent career was inconsistent
and troubled. Linda Blair (b. 1959) startled audiences
at the age of twelve in The Exorcist (1973), in a
performance that was unimaginably demanding and disturbing
and for which she was nominated for an
Academy AwardÒ. Thereafter, her roles and her movies
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