Astrid Allwyn

Biography

Lovely Connecticut-born blonde Astrid Allwyn, with her foreign-sounding name and icy countenance, spruced up a number of 1930s and early 1940s films. Of Swedish descent, she studied dancing and dramatics in New York and later gathered experience joining a stock company. Allwyn made her Broadway debut in 1929 in Elmer Rice's "Street Scene" and, on the strength of her second play "Once in a Lifetime," was brought to Hollywood in 1932. With the help of the Greta Garbo craze, the chic, heart-shaped faced beauty managed to parlayed her placid Scandinavian allure into a film career. She made her debut supporting Constance Bennett in the romantic comedy Lady with a Past (1932) and continued to charm then harm as the "other woman" opposite many of the big male stars of the day -- Humphrey Bogart in Love Affair (1932), Lee Tracy in The Night Mayor (1932), James R. Murray in Bachelor Mother (1932), Lionel Atwill in Beggars in Ermine (1934), Lew Ayres in Servants' Entrance (1934), John Boles in The White Parade (1934), Spencer Tracy in It's a Small World (1935), Herbert Marshall in Accent on Youth (1935), Henry Fonda in Way Down East (1935), Fred MacMurray in Hands Across the Table (1935), Fred Astaire in Follow the Fleet (1936), William Gargan in Flying Hostess (1936), James Dunn in Venus Makes Trouble (1937), Alan Baxter in It Could Happen to You (1937), Preston Foster in The Westland Case (1937), Bruce Cabot in Love Takes Flight (1937), Robert Young in Miracles for Sale (1939) and Richard Dix in Reno (1939). Rarely placed in the leading lady position, Astrid was given few front-tier assignments aside from Mystery Liner (1934), International Crime (1938) and as the lady reporter opposite John Archer's cop in the crimer City of Missing Girls (1941). She is probably better remembered for her support roles in the Charles Boyer/Irene Dunne tearjerker Love Affair (1939), as the scheming, predatory daughter of Senator Claude Rains who focuses her sights on James Stewart in the Frank Capra classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and as a barfly in No Hands on the Clock (1941). After filming Hit Parade of 1943 (1943), Astrid made a decision to retire so she could focus on family and raising children. Briefly married to first husband/actor Robert Kent, the couple appeared together in the Shirley Temple vehicle Dimples (1936) and Astrid went on to provide her customary chilly demeanor to little Miss Temple later again in Stowaway (1936). Married a second time in 1941 to businessman Charles O. Fee, a union that lasted until her death, they had two children -- Melinda O. Fee and Vicki Fee, both of whom became actresses. Astrid died of cancer in 1978 at age 72, and was interred at Forest Lawn Glendale, Court of Freedom, #955.